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Copyright 1889, by a. L. Burt, 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 





AUTHOE’S NOTE. 

O 'N THE third of June, 18Y3, the steamship 
Blucher, on the passage from Hew York to 
Bremen, foundered in mid-ocean. Of three hundred 
and fifty people on board, including officers and 
crew, less than seventy were saved in the boats. 

Circumstances unnecessary to be detailed here 
brought me in contact, a year later, with one of the 
steerage passengers who was saved. He described 
to me, in a simple yet thrilling wa}^, the frightful 
scenes of the night when the ship was discovered 
to be sinking, and the panic-stricken passengers 
crowded and fought for places in the boats. 

^Hn the confusion that followed the alarm,” he 
said, I did not discover that I had put on another 
man’s coat, and should not have minded it if I had 
discovered it at that time. Two days later, on the 
steamer that took up our boats, I examined the gar- 
ment, and recognized it as the property of one of 
the crowd in the steerage who went down with the 
Blucher. He Avas not m any of the boats, so that 
death must have been his fate. 

“ He was a silent man, keeping by himself, and 
seemed moody. I did not learn his name before the 
disaster; but in his coat-pocket Avas a book full of 
pencil-notes, Avith the name ‘ LaAvrence Galton ’ on 
the first page. 

“Here is the book. I’ll leave it Avith you. It 


8 


A MIRACLE. 


the sure foundation for prosperity and wealth. My 
ambition was to accumulate a great fortune, and it 
was plain at this time that I was on the sure road to 
realize that dream. I was mainly a practical, un- 
sentimental kind of person, as was shown by my 
course and conduct during the war fever that swept 
the land from 1861 to 1865. I was a firm Unionist, 
and very anxious that the rebellion should be put 
down ; I was willing to spend time and contribute 
money to that end, and to incite others, in season 
and out of season, to shoulder the musket and follow 
the old fiag; but when it came to enduring the 
dangers and hardships of the field in my own proper 
person — there I drew the line. It seemed to me 
that my example and infiuence were worth much 
more to the gre5;t Union cause than my blood could 
possibly be ; and besides, there was such a tempting 
amount of money to be made at home in Govern- 
ment contracts, and in taking shrewd advantage of 
the steady upward tendency of gold, stocks, and 
values generally. If there was anything wrong in 
my position I will not stop to justify it, since it was 
that of many thousands of other devout Union men. 
While the war lasted, then, I remained at home, pre- 
siding at war meetings, urging in emphatic speeches 
the vigorous prosecution of the nation’s efforts to 
put dowm the rebellion ; and I incidentally made 
some money. A thousand dollars of it I bartered 
for a substitute in 1864, when I was conscripted, and 
was sorry afterward to learn that the man was shot 
by the guard on the way to the front, in a desperate 
effort to desert. So painful to think that there were 


A JfODEEJV' MltlACLE. 


9 


those who seemed unable to rise to the height of 
sacrifice demanded of them in our great struggle for 
national existence ! 

But the war was happily over, I was steadily and 
surely prospering, and as a proof of the confidence 
and regard of my fellow-citizens I had been chosen 
an alderman at the last municipal election. That 
fact had everything to do with the matter of my 
present visit to the Mayor. He was about to visit 
the City of Hew York to examine material for the 
construction of sewers in our city, and I had 
promised him an hour’s consultation before the train 
departed (which would be ten o’clock), so that he 
might have the benefit of my experience and advice. 

The morning was bland and sunny. My heart 
was at ease as to my business affairs ; I had the com- 
fortable and reassuring feeling that a large profit 
was flowing in upon me ; that in the natural course 
of events but a few years could pass ere I should 
become one of the wealthy class (of which the city 
had a very limited number), and a political magnate, 
as 1 wished to be. Such thoughts were flattering to 
me, but not satisfying ; for at the age of twenty- 
eight I had missed the one golden prize which 
dwarfs all other attainments in comparison. The 
Jieart of the one woman I loved — of the only woman, 
it seemed to me, that I could ever love — had not only 
been denied me, but had been given to another. 

There is always bitterness in the sweetest cup of 
life, and this was mine. And oh, how like a mock- 
ery it was to think that I had so nearly succeeded ! 
To think that I had been encouraged by Georgia 


10 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


Bard, the acknowledged belle and beanty of the vil- 
lage — for this was three years earlier- — and had 
dreamed of life-long happiness with her, only to see 
her rudely snatched aw^ay from me b}^ a handsomer, 
a richer, a wittier rival — Ellard Gorman ! 

/Not in anger, and hardly in sorrow, after the 
amazing events of these later years, do I recount in 
as few wmrds as may be the story of my unhappy 
love and bitter disappointment. It must all be told 
to make the narrative complete, but I will tell it 
briefly. 

Georgia Bard was a peculiar person. I called her 
beautiful— ah, still loyal to my only love, I yet call 
her so ! — and yet there were persons w^ho insisted 
that she was only interesting, attractive, but not at 
all beautiful. These people were largely in the 
minority. She was the belle and beauty of Mont- 
ville — so the village, the city, declared. 

She came of a poor but highly respectable family. 
She was unusually well educated and accomplished ; 
her mind was so stored with knowledge of a practi- 
cal kind that busy and thoughtful men liked to con- 
verse with her. She was proflcient in vocal and 
instrumental music, and could speak several modern 
languages. Her figure was slight and graceful; her 
face thin and pale, but with regular features and 
deep grey eyes ; and her shapel}^ head was crowned 
with luxuriant masses of brown hair. Her manner, 
her speech, were fascinating ; to me they were 
simply entrancing. 

In 1861, before the fervor of the great war was 
upon us, when I was twenty-three and she a year 


A MODERN MIBACLE. 


11 


younger, I had partially engaged her affections. I 
say partially^ for I wish to do her no injustice. 
Looking back now, I can see that her heart was 
then given to me only with some careful reserva- 
tions ; indeed, she put them most plainly into speech 
one day when I declared my passion and begged her 
to make me the happiest man on earth by confessing 
that she loved me and by promising to be my wife. 
She turned her eyes seriously upon me, frankly 
gave me her hand, and said, without the least em- 
barrassment : 

Mr. Hunt, since you have spoken so plainly, it is 
well that we should have an understanding. You 
have been very attentive and kind to me ; others 
have, also ; and I am ready to believe that your love 
for me is something a little better and likely to be 
more enduring than theirs. There, sir ! Keep away! 
Hear me out ! If I were like most girls, as you 
know I am not, I should fall into your arms and 
agree to marry you forthwith. But I can’t do any 
such thing. I like you well enough, as I have just 
said, as a lover ; but as a husband — ah, that is a dif- 
ferent matter 1 Did you ever think how serious a 
thing it is for a man and a woman to take each other 
for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sick- 
ness and in health, to live together after God’s holy 
ordinance till death does them part 

She repeated the question out of her recollection 
of the marriage service in the ‘^Book of Common 
Prayer ” without a smile. I broke in and passion- 
ately protested that never, never did man love 
woman . as I loved her at that moment, and that I 


12 


A MODEEI{ MIRACLE. 


only wanted the opportunity to make her life radi- 
antly happy. I pressed her hand ; I tried to put my 
arm about her and draw her to me ; but she repulsed 
me with the utmost coolness. 

‘‘ Don’t forget yourself, Mr. Hunt,” she said. ‘‘ I 
am young, as you know, but have seen and read 
something of the world, and I don’t mean to ship- 
wreck my whole life with a disastrous marriage. 
No; don’t speak! 1 will talk for you. I rather 
like you, to begin with, as I have said ; but I’m not 
sure enough of you to marry you now — nor in less 
than two years. Don’t look so blue ! It is the best 
I can do for you. I’ll give you a two years’ trial. 
If at the end of that time you act and talk as you 
do now, and I feel then as much pleased with you as 
now, I will consent. These are my terms. I will 
not change them.” 

I begged and pleaded to no purpose. She was firm 
in her resolve. Keluctantly consenting, when words 
were spent, I implored her to kiss me. She turned 
a white cheek for my caress. 

The reader will say that she did not love me. 
Perhaps not then ; but life is long ! 

The incident just related happened early in 1861. 
Some weeks later came the firing on Fort Sumter, 
the call to arms, and the gust of patriotic feeling 
that swept the North. 

I have related how, in my calculating way, I was 
a selfish patriot. Georgia, well read in the history 
of her country, and thoroughly sympathizing with 
the grand effort to keep it whole, entered heart and 
soul into the cause. All that woman could do for it, 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


13 


she did. In the early months of the conflict, when 
so much was done out of blind enthusiasm, without 
much purpose or direction, she was the lady most 
frequently appearing upon the platform, at the 
great recruiting meetings, to sing the national 
airs or to recite some dramatic and patriotic selec- 
tion, always receiving unbounded applause. Later, 
when the slaughter of dreadful battles filled the 
land Avith woe, she became the most active member 
of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions in our 
locality, laboring and organizing labor for the relief 
of our brave and unfortunate soldiers. I admired 
her now, as well as loved her ; but she steadily put 
aAvay all my proffered endearments. 

Your tAvo years are not near spent,” she Avould 
say, “ and I am too busy Avith the needs of the 
soldiers to listen to you. Be patient, and you Avill 
receive your ansAver in time.” 

Working myself for the cause as I did, I had to be 
content Avith this poor encouragement, and Avith the 
priAdlege of being her escort to and from the meet- 
ings of ladies’ aid societies and public assemblages 
where she Avas called to arouse enthusiasm Avith her 
clear, high tones, in the rendering of the “ Star- 
Spangled Banner ” or “ Kally Bound the Flag.” 
During the two years that this continued, she never 
expressed a Avish that I might join the Union army. 
Often I felt cut to the quick by hearing her Avarm 
eulogiums upon the cause and its defenders in the 
field, and less often I felt in a sluggish kind of way 
that it might be Avorth some peril and hardship to 
obtain such praise from such lips ; but my feeling 


14 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


on the subject never lasted over night, and for two 
full years I was kept on this unsatisfying probation. 
Yea, for more than two full years. The spring of 
1863 was well advanced. May had come, but 
Georgia had not spoken. I waited with painful 
anxiety to hear her pronounce my fate, and all too 
soon I heard it. 

It was the time when the two-year volunteer regi- 
ments were returning home from the fields of their 
pain and their glory, to be mustered out; and 
among the others came back the one which had 
gone forth from Montville. Eight hundred strong 
it left us; barely two hundred and fifty marched 
through the streets on its return, following the fifes 
and drums, stepping with veteran tread,, with the 
shot-torn colors waving over them. More than two- 
thirds of the original number were sleeping their 
last dreamless sleep on all the fields from lYrktown 
to the Chickahominy, at Antietam and Fredericks- 
burg, or were crippled and wasting at home or in hos- 
pital. At the head rode the colonel, Ellard Gor- 
man, then about thirty years old, handsome and 
proud of bearing, still carrying one arm in a sling 
to ease a Avound, not yet healed, of a Confederate 
bullet. And how the thousands, congregating in 
Montville from the whole county, shouted and 
roared their applause ; how the ladies waved their 
handkerchiefs, and the flags fieAv from every win- 
dow as the soldiers proudly marched by to the 
tune ''When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
Again !” 

Then, and for weeks following, a large part of the 


A 3fODJSEjSf MIRAOLW. 


15 


popular enthusiasm of greeting the regiment was 
concentrated upon its gallant colonel. I must speak 
of him as he was ; no personal grief shall allow me 
to depreciate him. He had gone out in this organi- 
zation in a subordinate position, and by great merit 
and valor had won his way to the head. Stories of 
his courage and skill in time of battle, his patience 
and devotion to his command in weary marches and 
trying campaigns, were multiplied, and he naturally 
became a live hero, of whom all Montville and its 
adjacent country were proud. 

My own calamity followed quickly upon the 
tramp of the home-returning veterans. It was 
whispered about that Colonel Gorman, a prime 
favorite with all the loyal ladies of the place, had 
been seen and strongly attracted by the lovely face 
and ardent sympathies of Georgia Bard. She was a 
fearless equestrian ; I would as soon have thought 
of riding a rainbow as a horse ; but she now rode 
out each day under the escort of the Colonel, and a 
gallant pair they made. I was. not long in perceiv- 
ing* that her manner toward me was becoming more 
indifferent than ever ; and promptly taking the 
alarm, I sought an explanation. She gave it with- 
out evasion. 

“ There has been nothing but candor between us 
from the first,” she said, “ and I will not dissemble 
now. You will remember that I told you I must 
have two years in which to make up my mind. 
Well] I am decided. You might have seen for your- 
self, and saved this unpleasant interview. I cannot 
marry you.’’ 


16 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


“You never loved me!” I cried, with reproach in 
face and voice. 

“ 1^0 ; do not say that,” she calmly protested. “ I 
think I did at one time — a little. But I was not 
sure of my affections ; and marriage is a very serious 
business, Weldon! However, I have found a man 
who has shown me my heart as it is. He has not 
asked me for it yet, but I expect that he will. You 
look surprised to hear me talk thus. Why should I 
not, when I feel so deeply ? I tell you, after seeing 
and knowing Ellard Gorman, I can never love an- 
other man ! Ko ; not if my years should be pro- 
longed to thousands !” 

Strong words, even for so strong a character as 
Georgia Bard to utter ; and no doubt she believed 
them. But the hour was approaching when I should 
recall that passionate declaration and wonder anew 
at that complex riddle of the ages — the human heart ! 

I knew that efforts at dissuasion would be but as 
so much idle breath. I stood humbled, distressed 
before her. She looked at me with a certain at- 
tempt at compassion in her face — just as you may 
spell out a gentle expression from one of the great 
stone countenances along the Hile. She held out 
her hand. I took it and bent my head over it. I 
did not kiss it, but a tear fell upon it. 

“I am sorry for you, Weldon,” she said — “very 
sorry ; but it was inevitable.” 

Thus it ended ; or, rather, thus I thought it had 
ended. In my bitterness I foreswore matrimony for 
all my life, and that vow I had kept down to this 
day in the May of 1866. 


A MODBUJV MIRACLE. 


1 ? 


CHAPTEE II. 

MY HEAVY CROSS. 

I ET THE first access of grief and disappointment 
upon my rejection by Georgia Bard, I tlioUj^ht of 
disposing of every business interest that I had at 
Montville and quitting the place forever. IVIy feel- 
ing was a good deal that of other young men under 
similar circumstances — that there remained little or 
nothing to live for after the loss of the cherislied 
object upon whom the heart was set. But, though 
still young, I had too much good sense to give up 
entirely to the wretchedness of the situation. Keep- 
ing about my usual pursuits, and striving to absorb 
myself in them, I slowly got the better of my pas- 
sion ; that is, I became able to control it. To over- 
come it and make it as though it had never existed 
was impossible ; that I well knew. 

The heart of the masculine lover is a curious 
thing ! I tried my best to reason myself into an 
angry frame of mind against Georgia. See, now,” 
I would say, or think, in my solitude, ‘‘ what kind of 
a woman she is. As she said, she was rather drawn 
to you at first ; she was quite willing to keep you 
dangling about her in suspense ; and had this won- 
derful colonel never appeared upon the scene, she 
possibly would have married you. But with his 


/ 


18 A MOnSRK MmAGLE. / 

advent she throws you over as coolly as though she 
had never cared a straw for you. He is very 
wealthy ; he is big, rosy, and hearty in voice and 
manner, a kind of Jove among men, and he has all 
the glory of a soldier’s career to draw upon. Yoio^ 
on the contrary, are somewhat undersized, not a 
great specimen of manly beauty, and rather reserved 
in your ways. While your successful riv^al was 
leading his gallant regiment in battle, you were liv- 
ing quietly and safely at home, making money in 
war speculations. And so 

This was the turn that my reflections always 
reached. Beginning with severe mental reproaches 
upon Gfeorgia for her inconstancy, they were sure to 
end with a comparison between my successful rival 
and myself, which justified her conduct, as far as 
raiything could. 

People are not alwa3^s considerate of the distress 
of the disappointed lover ; and in my case I had to 
bear a great deal in the way of jokes and quips from 
the men and maidens of Montville on the subjects of 
‘‘ being cut out,” getting the mitten,” and so forth. 
These thoughtless jests I schooled myself to bear 
with outward composure, and soon outlived them 
all. 

I had in those sorrowful days one source of con- 
solation so strange and unusual that the reader will 
hardly be able to understand at first how it could be 
so. That source was Colonel Gorman himself, the 
man for whom I had been rejected ! 

Of course, the correct and natural thing, accord- 
ing to all romance, was that I should hate him and 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


19 


try to injure him in some underhanded way. But 
as I am not writing romance, the truth compels me 
to say that as the edge of my grief became blunted 
I found considerable solace in the fact that I had 
been supplanted (since it was inevitable) by one so 
much my superior in every way as was Ellard Gor- 
man. 

As for hating him, 1 never had that feeling at all. 
Regarding him at first as one whom I did not wish 
to meet, on account of Avhat had occurred, and re- 
solving that my intercourse with him should always 
be of the briefest and most formal, I was surprised 
to find how he won my respect and admiration as 
we were thrown together in society and business. 
His nature was so large, his manner so hearty and 
genial, that the man must have been a boor indeed 
who could resist him. There are men as well as 
women who are naturally captivating, and Colonel 
Gorman was of this kind. He attracted me so 
strongly that I began to feel that real friendship 
was likely to grow up between us, notwithstanding 
what had occurred. Though he must have known 
what my relations with Georgia had been, he never 
referred to the painful subject, but treated me with 
the utmost courtesy and consideration. 

I think it was about Christmas of 1863 that they 
were married. The Colonel had talked of returning 
to the army ; but the broken bones of his wounded 
arm did not knit properly, and he had to undergo a 
painful operation which left him a semi-invalid all 
that summer and fall. He was with Georgia much 
of the time, and an early day for the wedding was 


20 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


the consequence. Ah, that wedding! It was a 
grand and joyous affair ; people said that Montville 
had never seen the like. I will not describe it ; I 
will merely say that I was not a guest, but wished 
them both all happiness. 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


21 


CHAPTEE III. 

fortune’s favorites. 

T N DECEMBEE, 1863, they were married, as I 
-L have said. During the nearly two years and a 
half that had elapsed down to the May of 1866 
Colonel Gorman steadily rose to be the foremost 
figure of the town ; his business and public prosper- 
ity as well as the happiness of his domestic relations 
were the talk of the place. 

In judging of men and women, as well as in esti- 
mating other things, we must be largely guided by 
appearances ; and the Montville people, by this test, 
declared without dissent that Ellard Gorman was 
the happiest, the most fortunate of men, his wife the 
most charming, the most satisfied of women. So it 
appeared. 

He had large hereditary wealth, to begin with, 
and had greatly increased it by shrewd and fortu- 
nate speculations. It was thought that at this time 
he could* not be worth less than three hundred thou- 
sand dollars. 

He continued to grow in the estimation of the 
people of Montville. He had not only the dashing 
and showy qualities that had made him successful 
in the army and in society, but he also displayed 
sound business ability and judgment. He was 
chosen the first mayor of the city by a large major- 


22 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


ity, and his second election had been practically 
without opposition. 

His house was the grandest house in that region, 
finely situated on an eminence commanding a view 
of the city, the valley and the river beyond, with a 
glimpse of the distant mountain line. I had never 
visited it, but had been told that it was a marvel of 
showy architecture and luxurious furnishing, while 
its flower and landscape gardens could not be ex- 
celled in beauty in a circuit of a hundred miles. 

Many entertainments had been given there during 
these years; brilliant parties in winter and lawn- 
festivals iil sufiimer ; so that the society people of 
Montville had been furnished ample opportunity to 
observe the married life of the pair and their home 
surroundings. There was but one opinion; there 
was every reason why they should be happy ; noth- 
ing was lacking to make them so; and their whole 
conduct and demeanor in public showed that they 
were really and truly so. 

It was noted that Colonel Gorman was the per- 
fection of cordial hospitality. Each guest or visitor 
at his charming home was certain to be wiicomed 
by its master in a way that left no doubt of his 
sincerity, and to be placed perfectly at ease. All 
felt and acknowledged the charm of his manner, and 
the almost magnetic power that he had to please 
and entertain with his conversation. He could talk 
of anything and everything, and those with whom 
he conversed were not only charmed but profited. 

His lovely wife acted as naturally in her new 
position as though she had been born to it. She 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 23 

presided easily and gracefully at the hospitable 
table of this grand home, and at the festivals and 
receptions that were given there. She was pleasant, 
alfable, kind in speech and manner to all;, and the 
frequent expression that I heard was — ‘‘Well, her 
husband ought to be proud of her.” 

All this I had heard, not seen; for, as I have 
said, I had never visited the Gorman home, l^ot 
that I lacked invitations ; these came to me often ; 
but there was still a sore spot in my heart that I 
thought it best not to inflame by too close a view of 
Georgia’s Avedded happiness. That I was now, at 
the time this narrative opens, about to visit the 
Mayor at his mansion, was due to a sudden and un- 
expected necessity. I kneAv that he was about to 
go to ISTew York on municipal business ; some in- 
formation had reached me over night Avhich must be 
communicated to him, and I feared that I should not 
have time to say all I Avished should I defer seeing 
him until he reached the railroad station. The train 
Avould be due in an hour, and I saAV that it had 
become necessaiy for me to see him at his house. I 
had so advised him, and he had returned a cordial 
invitation to come. 

' But Avhile it is true that I had not had the oppor- 
tunity to Avitness the devotion of this favored couple 
to each other in their conduct at home, I had seen 
it elseAvhere. I had noticed hoAV, Avhen their car- 
riage stopped before the church, the concert-hall, 
even the stores, the Colonel Avas ever careful to as- 
sist his wife to the pavement, and the smile that 
she invariably gave him. At the delightful band- 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


concerts in the Park on summer nights I had seen 
them promenading together in the throng, arm in 
arm, just like a pair of young lovers — as they were. 
Eumor said that in that wet and unhealthy spring, 
when the Colonel had a severe congestive chill and 
was confined to the house for a week, his wife was 
herself almost prostrated with anxiety and watch- 
ing. The doctors said that it required something 
more than persuasion to make her take any rest. 

It seems idle for me to multiply these evidences 
of the mutual devotion of this pair, which all Mont- 
ville saw, knew, and believed. If I add now a 
chapter of another sort, it will be only because the 
person whom it mainly concerns will have much to 
do with the future of the story. 


A 3I0DEBN MIRACLE. 


25 


CHAPTEE lY. 

AN EPISODE. 

I HA YE heard it said that the average man has 
a kind of antipathy to his relatives. That is, 
he will appear decorously affectionate and loyal to 
them before the world, but will smack his lips over 
their failures and shortcomings with a zest that he 
would not feel in the case of mere strangers. I 
don’t know the philosophy of this species of cyni- 
cism, and I don’t care to know it. Can it be (ad- 
mitting its truth) that the average man is absurdly 
jealous of the rivalry of his own blood ? — as to which 
he surely ought to be magnanimous and unselfish, 
if those qualities are in him. 

I have stated a problem, and will not stop to an- 
alyze it. I merely make the statement of it the 
basis for saying that no such narrow feeling ani- 
mated me in regard to my cousin, J ulia Bement. 

She was my second cousin, so far removed in the 
scale of consanguinity that in my boyish days I 
used to regard her as not at all a relative, but a 
little sweetheart. In those days her parents had 
removed to what was then the ‘Har West,” and 
Julia had fitted herself for the occupation of a 
teacher, which to most of the young women of 
America of that day seemed to come as a second 


26 


A MODm:N' MIRAXJLE. 


nature. For many years I had not heard of her, 
when early in 1865 came a letter from her which in- 
terested me much. She told me that her parents 
were dead, and that she was alone in the world. 
She had been and was successful as a teacher — she 
could not ask for greater success than was promised 
her in this vocation — but she was lonely. Her talk 
had a refreshing frankness about it which won my 
instant admiration for her, and my determination 
to aid her in attaining the object she sought. 

“ My dear Weldon,” she said, remember you 
as a very truthful and rather stupid boy. That is 
frank, certainly ; let me. add that you always mani- 
fested a high degree of boy -love for . me, which I 
would like to draw upon now. I am almost thirty 
years old — somewhat older than you, I know. I 
am here at the Wild West, in a new and stirring 
city on the projected line of one of the Pacific Kail- 
ways, where everything is chaos, where incipient 
civilization jbstles aboriginal barbarism, where 
women are scarce and dear^ where I am very useful, 
always in demand, but where every other man I 
meet wants to marry me. If you could see some of 
them ! Hot Kobinson Crusoe in his attire of dressed 
skins would look more uncouth to me than do some 
of these red-shirted, slouch-hatted and long-booted 
men who are building the railroads and the towns, 
some of whom assure me that they were graduated 
from Yale and Harvard (their manners rather prove 
it), and who will listen to no compromise from me 
short of matrimony. My dear cousin, rescue me ! 
The fact is, I have a profound distrust for the whole 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 




race of men. I don’t wish to marry anybody. I 
simply want to teach school all my days, as I am 
well qualified to do. That I may say without van- 
ity — as witness the within testimonials. I have 
yearning recollections of Montville ; I presume that 
most of the people there now would not remember 
me ; but still it would seem something like home, 
and I shouldn’t be persecuted out of my life with 
offers of marriage. Get me a teacher’s place some- 
where in your schools, and show that you are worthy 
to be called Julia’s cousin.” 

Under the badinago of this characteristic letter I 
detected a tone of anxiety, and straightway set my- 
self to work to accomplish what she desired. I 
found it no difficult task. A vacancy in the place of 
preceptress of the Montville High School had just 
occurred, and my cousin J ulia’s application was 
most timely. With the recollection which some of 
the trustees had of her in her early years, with the 
strong credentials which she forwarded, with my 
unsparing efforts for her, reinforced at last by those 
of Mayor Gorman, whom I succeeded in interesting 
in her cause, I was enabled to send her the appoint- 
ment within a week after the receipt of her let- 
ter. 

She came to Montville ; she filled the first place 
in the female department of the school for a year 
with universal applause and acceptance. The schol- 
ars loved and reverenced her ; the Board went about 
rubbing their hands and saying, Ah, but we’ve got 
a jewel of a preceptress now ; and much thanks to 
you, Mr. Hunt, for bringing her to our notice !” It 


28 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


was conceded on all hands that no woman had ever 
taught in that place who had the practical knowl- 
edge, the ability to impart it, and the command of 
the affections and obedience of her overflowing de- 
partment of young ladies, that were exhibited by 
Miss Bement. 

And yet, at the very height of her career of pros- 
perity here — when, as I may say, she was largely 
the idol of both pupils and parents, and when it was 
reported that she had received several most advan- 
tageous offers of marriage — she abruptly resigned 
and returned to the W est. 

To those who were most nearly drawn to her she 
would state no definite reason for her surprising 
action. 

“ I am a creature of whims,” she would say. I 
left an excellent place and a most affectionate peo- 
ple at Wycaseo,far beyond the Mississippi, on a kind 
of a whim, and I am leaving you in Montville now 
for no better reason. Well, why not? If women 
may not have their whims, who can ?” 

1 remember how she impressed me when I met 
her at the Montville railroad-station on her arrival, 
as I hurried there in answer to her telegram. How 
Cousin Julia would appear or act, I had not the 
faintest idea ; but I conceived that a professional 
school-mistress ought to look old-maidish, even if 
young, and to have an absent and distrait air about 
her. I was looking for such a person when the train 
drew in and the issuing passengers thronged the 
platform, and then a hand was laid lightly on my 
arm. 


A MOBERN MIRACLE. 


Pardon me,” said the lady, “but you are ex- 
pecting somebody. Can it be me ? I am Julia 
Bement.” 

I took her hand and welcomed her warmly. The 
rights of cousins are world-known; she lifted her 
mouth to my kiss with the utmost placidity. 

On our way to the carriage, on the ride to the 
boarding-house where I had engaged rooms and 
board for her, I had a chance to study her, aside 
from her conversation, which was instantly pleasant 
and agreeable — a large* woman, built in nature’s 
kindest mold, with a grand head, strong features, a 
dark eye and dark complexion, with hair to match, 
all of which might have put acquaintance at a dis- 
tance but for the smile that welcomed and reassured 
you. It sunned her whole face, disclosed her white 
teeth, and shone brightly in her dark eyes. It was 
like mirth and gladness waiting upon intellect ; and 
her voice was as exquisite an organ as ever dwelt in 
human frame. 

I smile in reviewing Avhat I have here - written. 
It will be said that I was in love with my cousin 
Julia. Far from it, indeed ! I was proud of her ; 
proud of her stately beauty, of her intellect, and of 
her success. That she was my relative, augmented 
my pride. This was the beginning and the end of 
my feeling for her. But there were certain passages 
between us during her brief year in Montville 
whose import I could not then understand, but 
which subsequent events have led me to clearly 
interpret. 

The Mayor, as such, was a member of the Board 


80 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


of Education, and his visits to the schools made him 
acquainted with Miss Eement. She Avas included 
in the invitations for the next reception at the Gor- 
man place; in fact, she became a frequent guest 
there afterAvard. 

*’She kneAv that I never entered Colonel Gorman’s 
home. I suppose she kneAV the reason Avhj", as 
probably eAmrybody else in Montville kneAV it. Mo 
conversation as to this ever passed between us ; but 
I used to talk Avith her, hungry to hear her opinion 
as to the domestic relations of the Gormans. To 
my astonishment, I found her skeptical as to their 
great happiness. 

Why, Julia,” I said, “you surprise me. What 
can possibly lead you to think that they are not 
happy ?” 

She shrugged her shapely shoulders. “I merely 
intimated a doubt. Cousin Weldon,” she said. 
“Please don’t draAv me into an argument.” 

Put the doubt must have been founded on some- 
thing you have seen or heard betAveen them. What 
AA^as it ?” 

“Mothing. To all the world they are the most 
loyal, the most loving pair that eAmr lived. If you 
ask me for proof, I can’t bring an item to the con- 
trary. That is the Avay Montville knoAvs them ; I 
suppose they aauII be known that Avay till the death 
of one or the other of them. I only give you my 
opinion.” ^ 

“But your opinion must be founded on observ-a- 
tion. You must haA^e seen something to justify it. 
And as you stand alone in that opinion — as no one 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


31 


before you has ventured to suggest that the G-or- 
mans were not as happy privately as they seem to 
be publicly — pray, tell me what are the grounds for 
your belief 

I remember that her face was very serious as she 
answered my question. There was a world of meam 
ing in her black e 3 ms, could I have understood it. 
Looking back upon the conversation now, I recall 
that I was surprised at the depth of feeling that she 
showed. 

“ Cousin, let us not pursue this subject any 
further. I only judge, from my acquaintance with 
Mr. and Mrs. Gorman, that she is not the woman he 
should have married. Perhaps I am wrong ; this is 
only a guess. J ust regard it as such, and say noth- 
ing about it. I hope they arc happy ; but I don’t 
believe it.” 

When in the spring of the year 1866 I learned 
that her resignation as preceptress had been sent in, 
I hastened to her and urged her to withdraw it. I 
pleaded the case with her as fervently as I could. I 
reminded her of the esteem in which she was held 
by the Avhole people of Montville, and of the love 
Avith AAdiich the children regarded her. She looked 
serious, but said nothing. I hinted at an increase of 
salary ; she shook her head. I bluntly said that if 
she had a reason for this sudden and unreasonable 
departure she ought to make it knoAvn. She looked 
at me in a Aveary kind of Ava^q and persisted in her 
refusal. 

‘‘Weldon,” she said, “there -are the Amry best of 
reasons impelling me to do as I am doing ; but you 


32 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


will never know what they are. My dear cousin, 
this is a world of mysteries ; be content when you 
have fathomed the least of them. This one will 
never be revealed.” 

So she left us. 


A MIRACLE. 


33 


CHAPTER Y. 

A FAIR OUTSIDE. 

T he walk from my hotel in the city out to 
the suburbs where the Gorman mansion was 
situated was one of something more than a mile. I 
briskly pursued it, reflecting upon all these things, 
which ordinarily would have troubled me only as 
sad reminiscences. But there was something in one 
idea that gave me a little tremor ; and the more I 
thought of it the more the feeling increased. I was 
going to this mansion for the first time. For two 
years and a half I had seen its mistress — the one 
woman whom I could love — but casually ; never in 
such a situation that I could exchange more than 
the ordinary commonplaces of conversation with 
her. Hor did 1 hope or wish to do more than that 
now ; indeed, I hoped not to see her at all. Trust 
me, it is an awkward business to sit down tete-a-tete 
with the woman you have loved, whom you fancied 
loved you, and try to find something to say ade- 
quate to the occasion. You may talk together, but 
there will be no soul in it. You may give her the 
current coin of compliment and pass the gossip of 
the hour, but she knows well enough what you are 
thinking of. She probably thinks much faster than 
you do ; and even if she be happy in her husband 
and her home, your presence will incite disagreeable 


34 


A MOD£JJ^J\r MIRACLE, 


queries in her mind, in which, perhaps, you will be 
an intruding figure. 

Ah, the might-have-been ! The great impossible, 
never to be eliminated from our lives ! 

I entered the gate at Gorman place, and walked 
up the wide, flowery terrace to the house. 

Mr. Mayor Gorman was sitting by the open win- 
dow of a front parlor, robed in a florid dressing- 
gown, smoking a cigar. Observing my approach, 
he met me at the door and welcomed me with effu- 
sion. He looked like a picture of masculine health 
and contentment as he gave me both hands, drew 
me into the parlor, seated me in a great, yawning 
easy-chair, provided me with a cigar and a light, 
and never ceasing to talk, proceeded to put me at 
my ease. 

Ihn extremely pleased to see you here, Mr. 
Hunt,” he said. I was fearing we should never 
have that pleasure. You knew I was going to Hew 
York? Yes, but I have learned that the train is 
two hours late ; a washout up at Overton, or some- 
thing of that kind ; so I am taking my ease here for 
awhile; my big valise went up to the station an 
hour ago. How are you, anyway? I believe I 
haven’t seen you before for at least twelve hours.” 

There was a little touch of drollery in his talk 
and manner, as well as heartiness, that was irresist- 
ible. He was captivating, as usual, taking me by 
storm in spite of myself. 

Ho you care to see the house ?” he went on. “ It’s 
a large place, and there are people who are kind 
enough to think that there’s a good deal in it and 


A MODBldJ\r UmAOLK 


85 


about it to see. But you shake your head — you’ve 
got something to say. Yery well, my boy, go 
ahead. Business affairs waylay me at every turn, 
and would keep me awake o’ nights if I would let 
them. What is it, Mr. Hunt % Oh, I remember ; 
you want to talk sewer 

I told him my errand at once, and for thirty min- 
utes we talked business. The details of that con- 
versation are entirely immaterial here. I may well 
pass over the particulars of the information that I 
gave him about kinds, quality and price of sewer- 
pipe, and where he could find it in the metropolis. 
He listened attentively, asked some questions, and 
made a few pencil-notes in his diary. Our business 
concluded, I rose to depart. 

Don’t go,” he said, looking at his watch. “ I’ve 
an hour on my hands yet before it will be time to 
go to the station. How you’re here, you must see 
Mrs. Gorman. She’d hardly forgive me if I let you 
go without presenting you.” 

He put his hand on a bell-pull. I became some- 
what agitated, which he noticed. 

What’s the matter with you?” he brusquely 
asked. Any reason why you can’t see my wife?” 

“ Oh, no ; only — I am not used- to making morn- 
ing calls — and — and I am not dressed as I should 
like to be for ladies’ company.” 

Colonel Gorman heard my lame excuses, laughed, 
told me to sit dov/n again, and directed the domestic 
who answered the bell to tell her mistress that there 
was a gentleman in the red parlor who wished to 
see her. I stared at him in confusion. 


36 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


“Well, is not that so?” he asked, in his bantering 
way. “ If you don't want to see my wife, you’re 
almost the only man in Montville who don’t.” 

“ Why, certainly,” I stammered ; “ it would give 
me great pleasure to pay my respects to Mrs. Gor- 
man.” 

“ To be sure. The men all admire her, and I’m 
quite willing they should. By Jove, sir, I should 
have a poor opinion of the man who couldn’t ad- 
mire such a fine woman as Mrs. G. J^o jealousy 
about me, Hunt ; not an atom. I can’t understand 
how a man with a handsome and accomplished wife 
could be satisfied unless she had her full share of 
admiration. In my case, I take all this approbation 
of Mrs. Gorman as a tribute to my good taste in 
marrying her ; and then, you see, the popular ap- 
plause lavished on the lady gives me a much higher 
conception of the value of my prize. Where some 
men make fools of themselves with causeless jeal- 
ousy, I find my satisfaction increased. You are go- 
ing to find, when you marry, Mr. Hunt, that there 
are several ways for a fond husband to view the at- 
tractions of the finest woman in the World — as, of 
course, a man’s wife must always be in his own eyes. 
Let me recommend this way to you.” 

It was just such a hearty and unique speech as the 
Colonel often made, and his face expressed the ut- 
most good humor as he spoke. Why, then, was it 
that I fancied a slight tone of irony, just a fiavor of 
acid, in his voice and words ? Possibly I was look- 
ing for something of the kind. I remember that 
my cousin Julia’s skeptical remarks had passed 


A MODERN MIRACLE. ST 

through my mind as I walked up there that morn- 
ing. 

I was saved the necessity of answering the Col- 
onel’s outspoken reflections by the entrance of his 
wife. 

She greeted me with a charming smile and a 
frankly-offered hand. I had not seen her for some 
weeks — for months I had not exchanged even a 
casual word with her upon meeting — and she ap- 
peared to me now like a vision of beauty and grace, 
more charming than I had ever seen her, coming in 
her simple morning costume, the very plainness and 
simplicity of which seemed to me to enhance her 
charms. She gave me a cordial pressure of the 
hand, and took a seat on the sofa near me, while her 
husband sat facing us in a large easy-chair. 

This is indeed a surprise,” she said, in her sweet, 
silvery tone. Kemembering how many of my in- 
vitations you have slighted, I may be allowed to 
wonder that I now have the pleasure of seeing you 
here, Mr. Hunt, welcome as you are.” 

He’s not entitled to the least credit, Georgia — 
from you, anyway,” Mr. Gorman insisted. “ He 
came to see me on business. I believe he came here 
only because he was afraid that he couldn’t depend 
on seeing me long enough at the station. Is that so. 
Hunt ?” 

“ I believe it is. But I am none the less fortu- 
nate in having the unexpected pleasure of seeing 
Mrs. Gorman.” 

“ You speak the meaningless language of flattery, 
sir !” said the lady, with a pleasantly-assumed se- 


A MODEMir MIRACm 


verity. “ You are at fault, Mr. Hunt, and you know 
it, for continually slighting us. However, you may 
make your excuses some other time. I must not be 
hard upon you on the first occasion of your entering 
my h©use.” 

I answered something; what, I know not. My 
composure and the use of my tongue were regained 
only with a struggle, which was not yet over. And 
she sat so near to me that I could have touched her 
with my outstretched arm, placid and smiling. Her 
husband sat near us, careless and nonchalant, not 
suspecting, as I thought, the pain that this tete-a-tete 
was giving me. 

For it was painful ! The old fires, which I thought 
were smothered by the lapse of years and her pos- 
session by another, now broke forth at sight of her 
here in this happy and luxurious home, with the 
fortunate and deserving man by her to Avhom she 
was linked for life. Who was it that said love is 
merely the creation of circumstance and propin- 
quity, and that it may be starved and conquered, 
the same as a fever of i he body ? It is not so. Sit- 
ting there that morning, knowing how hopeless, how 
sinful was the passion, I confessed to myself that I 
loved that woman as firmly, as deeply as ever. The 
mere sight of her there distressed me. Hothing but 
the proprieties of social intercourse, to which even 
bleeding hearts must defer, restrained me from seiz- 
ing my hat and rushing abruptly from the house, to 
relieve my distress. 

The conversation went on, and added to my 
agony. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


39 


“ I believe, Georgia,” said the Colonel, “ that Mr. 
Hunt was one of your early acquaintances.” 

Oh, yes. I knew him a long time before I knew 
you.” 

Indeed ! Well — excuse me, my dear ; but I’ve 
sometimes wondered why the young fellows of that 
day in Montville — yourself among them, Mr. Hunt — 
did not make better use of their opportunities before 
I came upon the scene.” 

“ Oh, you ungenerous man ! I supposed you knew 
that I was waiting for you, or for some man just 
like you.” 

“ To be sure, Georgia ; and I’m glad, indeed, that 
you did not grow weary waiting. Still, I might be 
excused for thinking I had narrowly escaped losing 
you before I. found you. What, I wonder, would 
have happened if Hunt had courted you before I 
came as zealously as I did afterward ?” 

What could the man intend by such talk? It 
seemed to me to go far beyond the familiar levity in 
which a husband might indulge with his wife as to 
the time when both were single. The question gave 
me a most uncomfortable pang, and I looked at Mrs. 
Gorman, fearing to see her overwhelmed with con- 
fusion. 

Nothing of the kind ! She gave a sprightly laugh, 
looked at me with something like coquetry in her 
eyes, and shook her finger with assumed displeasure 
at her husband. 

‘‘Now Ellard — how can you!” she said. “Mr. 
Hunt and I were very good friends, just as most of 
the nice young men of Montvillo and myself were ; 


40 


A MODERN MIRAGLE. 


just as we all are now, I trust. You well know, you 
provoking man, why I waited for you — or for one 
like you. We were all heated with the war fever, 
then. I had pretty nearly vowed to marry a soldier ; 
and you happened to be the one.” 

‘‘ Ah, yes, madam ! — how much do I owe to brass 
buttons and shoulder-straps ! The war did a great 
deal for me, certainly ; among other things, it quali- 
fied me to be your husband, my dear. Mr. Hunt, I 
fear you did not improve your opportunity. The 
war is o^^’^er, its glories are vanishing, we are getting 
to be one people again, and you may never have the 
chance of winning a fair maiden’s heart by the fame 
of gallant soldiership. Well, well — there are other 
fields where you may display your chivalry ; rjinem- 
ber that you are an Alderman of the City of Mont- 
ville at this moment ! Meantime, until you repair 
the injustice your celibacy has inflicted upon Mrs. 
Gorman^s captivating sex by wedding one of them, 
please let u's see you here often. Don’t be churlish 
and refuse our invitations. How it’s time to go to 
the train, and I must change my coat. Excuse me, 
both of you.” 

Georgia and I were left alone together. 

The situation would have seemed from fche first 
moment embarrassing to me, but for what had gone 
before. Having listened with some surprise to the 
light and bantering conversation that had occurred 
between this husband and wife, I taking little part 
in it, I naturally supposed that she would continue 
the same strain when left with me. 

She did nothing of the kind. The brightness all 


A MODmN MlRACLR 


41 


Went out of her face; it grew hard and almost 
defiant. With the quickness of thought I wondered 
how that face could suffer such a change. 

‘‘You never came here expecting to see me, this 
morning?” she abruptly questioned. 

“Why — my call was on business — but ” 

“ I see. And you did not ask my husband to call 
me down ?” 

I hesitated. 

“ Weldon ” — she used the name as she had used it 
years before — “ tell me ! Did you request to see 
me ?” 

“ Perhaps I ought to have done so ; but I did not.” 

“ I knew you did not. It was like you to be con- 
siderate of me, and not unnecessarily to give me 
pain. And it was like the man who has just left 
this room to insist on putting me on exhibition be- 
fore you,, so that the fame of our happiness and do- 
mestic harmony might be still further extended. 
The brute ! He has no care, for my feelings; he 
has known well enough that I was grateful to you 
for keeping away from me, yet he has persisted in 
sending you invitations, though I begged him not to 
do so ; and now, you happening to be here on busi- 
ness, he must call me in and harrow my heart with 
his talk about the days when I was free, and when 
some perverse fate made me prefer him to you. Oh, 
God! What refinement of misery is this! Wed- 
lock without love — almost with loathing !” 

Her jeweled hands covered her fair face ; tears 
trickled through her fingers ; her slight frame shook 
with her sobs. 


4 ^ 


A MODBm MIRACLE. 


I sat there aghast, nearly stunned by the discovery 
that had been forced upon me. Dumbly I looked at 
her, my heart beating fast, speech denied me. 

This phase of her emotion passed as quickly as it 
had come. Her perfumed handkerchief dashed the 
tears from her eyes and cheeks ; and though the 
color came faintly to her face, both face and voice 
were still hard. 

“Weldon,” she said, “a woman may not always 
control ’herself ; not even such a woman as I. You 
have learned in a breath what I meant to take to 
my grave unrevealed. But I have been tried be- 
yond my strength ; patience, discretion, everything 
has given way under the cold, mocking heartless- 
ness of that man. And he promised to love, honor, 
and protect me ! Oh, heaven ! 

Her little hands were clinched. Her eyes liad a 
fierce glitter. 

I forgot that she was a wedded wife. Indeed, 
had not her anger been teaching me to forget it? 
The old passion surged up in my heart. I found my 
voice, and spoke in a delirium of hope, an ecstasy 
of overwhelming joy ! 

“ Georgia — dear, dear heart — blessings be forever 
upon you for what you have said ! I have not been 
— I never can be — a man without you. Do you 
still give me hope ? Life is long — I will be discreet 
— I can wait. Some day you will be free from these 
hateful bonds, and then ” 

She repulsed me as I tried to take her hand. 
Calmly, quietly, as though no tempest had just ruf- 
fled her soul, she looked into my eyes and spoke ; 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


43 


“Weldon, forget the folly you have heard from 
me. Promise me that while I live no mortal shall 
ever hear of it. When I die — and sometimes I 
think that will he soon — I shall not care what is 
said. Because I have been provoked beyond my 
strength, and have said to you what no wife should 
say, promise me that you will faithfully keep locked 
in your breast what I have unwittingly disclosed. 
Promise — in the name of the love you once bore 
me.” 

“ I do promise, Georgia. I swear it, with my 
hand on my heart ! And now, having vowed that 
to you, can you not give me hope ? I tell you, such 
a love as mine can wait for years. I cannot stifle 
it; I would not if I could. O Avoman, Avoman! 
grievously as you wronged the heart that adored 
you, yet there may be reparation noAv. There may 
be ” 

“ There is none,” she faintly said. 

“ I Avill Avait ! God never meant that we tAVo 
should be divorced forever, even in this Avorld. In 
honor, in laAA^', without sin or rejiroach, the Avay Avill 
yet be opened for us to be united.” 

For a moment her face Avas filled Avith inexpres- 
sible tenderness ; for an instant she yielded her hand 
to me. 

“ I am punished, Weldon,” she said, Avith a Amice 
as dreary as the Avind Availing over untuned harp- 
strings. “ I am punished for my pride and false 
ambition. My punishment is almost greater than I 
can bear. I haAm not only devoted myself to life- 
long misery, compelled to Avear a smiling mask while 


44 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


the face beneath was all woe — but I have filled your 
life with bitterness. Well, the error is beyond re- 
pair. We must both suffer. I must go on in all the 
weary years that may be before me, acting a lie to 
the world, as I have been doing. You, if you are 
sincere in this ” 

‘‘ Georgia !” 

“Well — grant it — you must continue to suffer. 
There is no more to be said. I foolishly, weakly 
bound myself to a man whom I admired, trusting 
that love would follow our union. Love f Oh, why 
do I profane that sacred name, in mentioning it 
with Kis ! God help me ! Admiration and love are 
gone together, destro3^ed by the hard experience of 
a few brief 3"ears of living with him. But there is 
something left, Weldon Hunt ! It is honor! It is 
the woman’s duty to herself — to her obligation, if 
not to her husband — to society^ — to her God! I 
thank Him that lie has been merciful and denied 
me children: ^ Their baby hands upon nn^ face, their 
prattling voices in my ear, might have softened me 
toward him who would have been their father. 
Weldon, this interview has lasted too long; it had 
better never happened. You were right in never 
seeking me ; you knew your own feelings ; I have 
told you too much of mine. Go awa}^ and try not 
to see me anywhere hereafter where we might be 
brought face to face and compelled to talk. My 
trials are painful enough without that.” 

She sobbed; she strove in vain to prevent it. 
Again I sought her hand ; again she repelled me. 

“ You give me no hope,” I bitterly cried. 


A MODBUJV MIRACLE. 


45 


“Yes,” she replied. 

“You do ? Oh, where ; how ” 

She changed her seat to the piano-stool. Softly, 
sweetly, like the cadences of a long-forgotten melody, 
she struck the accompaniment of a song that in 
those days had captured the popular heart, because 
it had in it so much of that “touch of nature ” that 
“makes the whole world kin.” IS’obody sings it 
now, but it lingers here and there in memory. 

“ Do you recognize it ?” she asked. 

“ Ah, do I not ! You used to play it for me — and 
sing the song.” 

Just one stanza of it she sang now. Her voice 
had first and last entranced thousands during those 
busy and stirring days of the war; but ah! she 
never put the pathos into any song that breathed 
and sobbed as she^ sang those words to me that 
morning, beginning': 

I struggled to forget. 

But my struggle was in vain ; 

It is years since last we met, 

And we may not meet again. 

Her fingers, whiter than the keys, were raised 
from them. With composure she now regarded me. 

“ It is your answer,” she said. 

“ But you spoke of hope,” I protested. 

“ Yes ; there is hope. In heaven, Weldon.” 

My head fell on my breast. My brain whirled ; I 
was dimly conscious of my surroundings, but weari- 
ness possessed me ; I should have delighted in the 
presence of death at that moment. The soft notes 
from the piano came to my ear as I might have 


46 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


dreamed them; when they abruptly paused, I 
started and looked up. Colonel Gorman had just 
returned to the parlor. 

He came back as brisk and effusive as he went. 
He had donned a new business suit, and I thought, 
as he stood just inside the door contemplating us, 
rubbing his hands and beaming with smiles, that he 
was a perfect picture of florid health and manly 
beauty. 

“Ah — Mrs. Gorman at the piano,” he began. 
“ Glad you were able to get her there. Hunt ; no 
offense, Georgia, but you know you haven’t played 
much lately. ’Tis the way of all married ladies, I 
hear. 

“ Our friend has been well entertained, of course ; 
trust Mrs. G. for that. Well, I’m sorry to break up 
so agreeable a call, but my time’s nearly up ; I 
must start for the station. However, that need not 
disturb 3^ou, Mr. Hunt ; sta}^, and welcome. You’ve 
been so long coming that you won’t need any 
excuse. Still, I’d like your company myself for 
awhile.” 

Again I thought I detected just the least flavor of 
the bitter in his speech. Yet he smiled as he spoke ; 
his wife smiled back ; and I presume that I, too, out 
of courtesy, assumed an agreeable expression which 
did not at all reflect my feelings. 

“ I thank you for your kind words, Mr. Gorman,” 
I said, “but I prefer not to tarry. These are 
business hours, you know, and I am sure that Mrs. 
Gorman will excuse me.” 

“ Yery well ; you’ll be welcome any time, remem- 


A Modern miracle. 


i1 

ber. Stay a bit ; I think I’ll walk to the station ; 
it’s not very far. My dear, please send word out to 
the stables for Patrick to put up the horses. Hunt, I’ll 
walk along with you as far as our ways lie together.” 

I bowed to Mrs. Gorman and passed out into the 
hall. I supposed — who would not? — that between 
any husband and wife inhabiting the same house, 
upon a parting that was to last a week, there would 
be some show of affection. I thought it probable 
that a kiss might be exchanged, and any of us 
would desire to relieve such an occasion of possible 
embarrassment. 

As I stood in the hall my back was turned to 
them. Before me was a branching hat-tree, in the 
center of which was a large mirror. In this mirror 
these two, still in the parlor, were perfectly re- 
flected. 

What happened took less time than I shall occupy 
in describing it ; but-I saw it all in the glass. 

They stood face to face. He reached forth his 
hand ; she took it in a listless way, dropping it im- 
mediately. 

He half-turned to go. Then he stopped, faced 
her again, and placed a hand on her shoulder to 
draw her to him. She turned her face from him. I 
saw that face. It expressed impatience — I had 
almost said disgust. 

And I saw his face. A black frown darkened it. 
I heard his muttered imprecation, and then his foot- 
steps behind me. 

But wdien I looked from the glass to the man I 
saw him bland and smiling as ever 1 


48 


A MODEm MIRACLE. 


He twirled his neatly-cased umbrella as he de- 
scended the front steps and waved his hand to his 
wife. 

“Farewell, Georgia,’’ was his blithe salutation. 
“ I shall stop at the Hotel Kremlin ; remember 
that, if you should have occasion to write or tele- 
graph. Expect me back a week from to-day.” 

I suppose that she thought any further pretense 
before me unnecessary. She vanished in the house 
without a word. 

Colonel Gorman strode down the wide walk, 
switching off the heads of some early flowers along 
the borders. I folio w^ed him closely, but observed 
that he was plunged in reflection and paid no atten- 
tion to me. Out of the grounds we passed in this 
way, and down the long elm-shaded street which 
the great house terminated. Thus we walked, he 
apparently forgetting my presence. I might have 
left him quietly, without his observing my depart- 
ure ; but I thought it better not to do so. 

Arriving ^t a cross-street which led to my place of 
business, I stopped, while he strode on. I called to 
him twice before his attention was. arrested. 

“Ah!” he said, pausing and looking around. 
“What is it?” 

“ Only that I must bid you good-day here. A 
pleasant journey, and all success to you.” 

He removed his hat and dashed his hand over 
his brow. 

“Wait!” he said. “Are you very busy this 
morning?” 

“ I have enough to occupy me.” 


A MIRACLE, 


49 


“ Give me an hour of your time. I must talk 
more with you. The train is likely to be later than 
reported.” 

Not only was his manner imperative, but my curi- 
osity and interest were painfully excited. I accom- 
panied him to the station. 


50 


A MIUAGLE, 


CHAPTEK YT. 


A WHITED SEPULCHEE. 


MAN" MAY have acted without intentional 



Avrong motives; he may even say that he 
could not haA^e done otherAvise, under all the circum- 
stances, and yet he may be profoundly dissatisfied 
Avith his conduct. It Avas in this frame of mind 
that I continued my Avalk Avith Ellard Gorman to- 
Avard the station. 

My brief visit at his home had afforded me the 
most surprising glimpses of a domestic discord 
greater than my cousin Julia could have imagined. 
The truth had faintly appeared in his OAvn guarded 
but significant utterances ; and his wife, Avhen alone 
Avith me, had astounded me with the fullness of her 
passionate protest against her situation and its re- 
sulting misery. As she was careful to explain to 
me, Avhen the tempest had someAvhat subsided, she 
had been suddenly overcdtne by a sense of her hus- 
band’s cruelty in reminding her of days Avhen she 
Avas happy, and in putting me in her Avay. The 
things that she had said to me, the confession she 
had made, Avere most unusual ; but I could under- 
stand hoAV she could be hurried to speak in‘this sur- 
prising Avay. 

And she had promptly corrected the fault, if fault 


A JfODBJiJV MIRACLE. 


51 


it was ; she had checked the assurances of my old 
love, she had bidden me renounce hope, and had 
peremptorily closed any further reference to the 
subject. How could I blame myself ? The words I 
had spoken to her were natural, indeed unavoidable, 
under the circumstances. Why should I feel dis- 
satisfied with myself ? 

It was merely, I suppose, that no man of honor 
and correct principles can enter his friend’s house 
and engage in such a passage with the wife of that 
friend as had occurred between Mrs. Gorman and 
myself without experiencing something like self-re- 
proach. I knew that our whole American social 
fabric — our Government itself — is budded upon the 
idea of the sacredness of the home, and that he who 
seeks to violate that temple is an unspeakable villain. 
Hot that I vras in any danger of becoming such a 
transgressor ; that thought was rather absurd, con- 
sidering the high character of Georgia Gorman, as 
well as my own rectitude. Still, an awkward con- 
sciousness that there Avas now something between 
me and the man by Avhose side I Avas Avalking Avhich 
Avas unexplained and unexplainable made me uneasy. 
But Avas it unexplainable ? 

His conduct that morning had impressed me 
strangely. He had just requested me to accompany 
him farther, avoAving that he Avished to talk with 
me. Our business Avas concluded. What could he 
want to say ? 

Putting what I had seen and heard that morning 
together, I believed that a strange disclosure Avas 
preparing for me. 


52 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


I was not mistaken. 

But Mr. Gorman seemed in no haste to reach it, 
whatever it might be. He spoke of the fine weather, 
the natural beauty of the site of Montville, and the 
magnificent prospect from the high grounds of the 
city, which we were descending. He stopped and 
chatted briefly with an acquaintance whom we met. 
Arrived at the station,, he purchased a ticket, at- 
tended to the checking of his baggage, and then 
went into the telegraph office to inquire for the 
train. 

‘‘ They say it will not reach here for an hour yet,” 
he said. That is fortunate. I shall have time to 
say all I wish to. Come over here, and let us take it 
easy.” 

He led the way across the tracks to a green strip 
bordering the fence opposite. He cast himself lazily 
down, lighted a cigar, and said, with the utmost 
coolness : 

‘‘Well, Hunt, did you and madam reach a good 
understanding ?” 

Such remarkable surprises had been given me dur- 
ing the morning that I was in a measure prepared 
for anything that might transpire as to this man 
and wife, so the question did not greatly agitate 
me. Yet I could not suppress a certain feeling of 
guilt, and I presume the blood came to my cheek. 
I hesitated for an answer. 

“Don’t feel embarrassed, my boy,” said the 
Colonel, with a pleasant familiaritj. “I have the 
right to infer that during the fifteen or more 
minutes you and Mrs. Gorman were left together — 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


53 


designedly left together, as I might just as well 
admit — she told you much that you did not know 
before, and rather rudely opened your eyes to the 
real state of things in that house. Did she 

‘^Mr. Gorman, will you please answer me one 
question truthfully and candidly 

“A hundred, if you wish.” He was all com- 
posure and ease, talking without the slightest heat 
or impatience, and occasionally blowing the cigar- 
smoke through his nose to emphasize his languid 
amiability, ‘‘xisk me anything you wish, and I’ll 
answer. I want nothing so much as a very free con- 
versation with you.” 

“Pardon me, then — but I don’t quite understand 
ir present attitude toward me. Are you seeking 
confidence in a friendly spirit ? May I be sure 
at we shall end this interview without your be- 
aming my deadly enemy ?” 

He laughed — yes, he actually laughed, very 
heartily. My serious face increased his amusement. 

“ My dear Hunt,” he said, “ I have known and 
esteemed you for some years. I assure you that 
there isn’t a creature on this continent toward whom 
I feel more friendly at this moment than toward 
you. Nothing that you can tell me will surprise me 
lialf as much as what I shall say will surprise you. 
The extent of my knowledge as to the workings of 
your heart and the wreck of your affections is aston- 
ishing. I am not merely friendly to you ; if I had 
any pity to spare from my own miserable self I would 
give it to you. No, sir; dismiss your apprehen- 
sions. I do not come to you as an ^ injured husband ;’ 


64 


A MODFBJV MIRACLE. 


I have no concealed pistols or daggers. The folly in 
this case is not to be cured with blood, but the point 
has been reached in the situation where plain talk is 
demanded. If we can be made to understand each 
other thoroughly, some future trouble may be 
avoided, possibly some future happiness expected. 
So 1 repeat my question— did madam and yourself 
arrive at a fair understanding 

I will admit that there was a very plain talk 
between us. She expressed herself freely, and I did 
the same. But there was no impropriety ; there 
was no ” 

He interrupted me with mirth that was almost 
boisterous. He clapped my knee with his hand. 

Impropriety ! Who said there was, you sweet 
innocent? Who hinted at such a thing? Let Mrs. 
G. alone for attending to the proprieties ; I’d risk 
her on any occasion. How, not having heard a word 
that passed between you two, I will venture to 
guess correctly what madam said. What you said I 
can’t be so sure of; I’m in doubt whether you’d 
venture to make love to her on small provocation or 
not; but Til venture an elephant against an ear- 
ring that Georgia denounced me severely for calling 
her down to see you, and took occasion to say that I 
was odious to her, and to throw in some edifying re- 
flections about what might have been, but wasn’t. 
Ah ! — your face changes ; she did say something like 
that? I know her thoroughly, Mr. Hunt; a fine 
woman, but subject to what are called ‘ tantrums ’ 
on provocation.” 

“ I regret, now, that you insisted on my seeing 


A MODmS MIRACLE. 


65 


her. It was your suggestion, you will remember. 
I objected, as mildly as I might, but you would 
have it so.” 

Thus I spoke, and he swiftly answered : 

“ True enough. Perhaps she told you that she 
was not responsible for the repeated invitations to 
our parties and dinners that you have received ; 
that I insisted on sending them. Maybe she in- 
formed you that she hated me all the more for try- 
ing to make her uncomfortable, if not positively 
wretched, with the presence of a rejected lover 
whom she has lately learned to compare favorably 
with her husband 

I ran from hot to cold, and flushed and paled as I 
heard his words, truly stating what she had said. 

“ Mr. Gorman,” I cried, “ to what does all this 
tend ? Are you accusing me ?” 

“ 1^6, indeed ! I am only showing you that I 
thoroughly understand the situation.” 

There was a short pause. I knew not what to 
say. He was collecting and arranging his thoughts 
for an explanation. 

“I suppose she is right about it,” he began. 

Knowing that she did not wish to see you, knowing 
why she did not, I ought to have respected her 
wishes. They were certainly very honorable to her. 
I suppose the insistence has been a mere manifesta- 
tion of ugliness, in me. Kot the proper spirit, of 
course, for me to compel such a meeting, where she 
would have to treat you as an ordinary visitor and 
chide you for staying away ; but it has grown out 
of the miseries and hatreds of our married life. So 


56 


A MODEBN MIRACLE, 


thoroughly wretched have I been that I have been 
willing to make this woman, who is tied to me as 
the corpse was tied to the sailor battling with the 
waves — to make her feel all the wretchedness of the 
situation also. You start; you are thinking that 
such a course is unmanly — unworthy of me. Yery 
true; so it is. But put yourself in my place, if you 
can ; live the lie that I have lived for more than two 
years ; be to the world smiling, happy, blest as man 
rarely is in his domestic relations ; and be, in fact, 
the most miserable being that - the sun shines on, 
staggering under the burden of a frightful error 
which he must conceal from the world, forever un- 
able to seize upon a later enchanting happiness held 
out alluringly to him, only to be snatched away. Be 
all of this, Weldon Hunt, and then, perhaps, you 
will be able to look with pity and forbearance upon 
the shortcomings of a man in that situation.” 

As he spoke he roused himself to energy, almost 
to passion. He threw away his cigar ; he rose and 
strode back, and forth over the grass, his eyes 
sparkling, his cheeks flushing. Notwithstanding 
what I had heard before, his vehemence appalled 
me. 

“ Do you tell me that this has been yoior life here 
in Montville since you were married?” I asked. 
‘‘ Is the story all as bad as this ?” 

“ Aye — and worse ! I have told .you that I have 
been a living lie ; I must add that yonder fair man- 
sion has been a whited sepulcher — beautiful outside ; 
within, full of hatreds, discords and misery. You 
shall hear the story. Part of it has been given to 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


57 


you, and the strange recital will interest you more 
than it could any other. I am much in the mood 
for unburdening myself to you to-day. I can trust 
to your discretion to keep the secret.” 
lie poured it into my astonished ears. 


68 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


CHAPTEE YIL 

A LIYINa LIE. 

C OLONEL GOKMAN consulted his watch. 

‘‘We have still more than half an hour,’’ he 
said. “ I shall have time to be through with the 
story of all this wretched business if I speak fast, 
as I will. If you need any reason or provocation 
for my telling you, Mr. Hunt, beyond what has al- 
ready been stated, I think the narrative will furnish 
it as it proceeds. Besides this, just reflect that I am 
about to absent myself from home for a week — in a 
perfectly legitimate way, to be sure, and upon busi- 
ness which is a sufficient excuse. But every day, as 
you know, the press reports bring us tidings of rail- 
way disasters involving the loss of life ; and people 
sometimes go to New York and get mysteriously 
lost there — in fact, never turn up at all. Ah! your 
eyes suggest a question. Am I thinking of that lat- 
ter possibility for myself? No, sir; emphatically 
not ! I expect to return to Montville at the expira- 
tion of the week, and here resume my accustomed 
burdens, here put on the mask again, and seinble 
and dissemble with the people. Yet no man can 
tell what a week or a day may bring forth ; and you 
being interested in the facts next after Georgia and 
myself, I feel that I ought to improve the opportu- 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


59 


nity to give you my version of them. Hers might 
differ ; I care not. Should she ever have a chance 
to tell you her side of the case, you may judge be- 
tween us. Should a kind and overruling Provi- 
dence ever remove me from this rather weary world, 
and create that opportunity for Georgia, I trust that 
my spirit may attend the interview and be highly 
edified by her statement. She may talk then with- 
out interruption.” 

The man spoke and looked a sneer that was un- 
natural to him. His deeply-stirred feelings Avere 
leading him to exhibit to me a side of his character 
which his previous conversation had hinted at, but 
Avhich was surprisingly new to me, as it Avould have 
been to any of his most intimate friends. Ellard 
Gorman a bitter cynic ! It seemed impossible. 

‘‘"Well, I proceed,” he resumed ; “ but let us have 
a fair start. Of course, I knew — you knew that I 
knew — when I married Georgia Bard that she and 
you had but just finished up some kind of a love 
episode. All Montville Avas aAvare of that fact. 
The lady herself thought it necessary to refer to the 
subject during our courtship. ‘ Mr. Hunt is a Awy 
good kind of a man,’ she said, ‘ and I am under obli- 
gation to him for many attentions; but you may 
judge for yourself. Colonel, Avhether he is the sort of 
person Avho Avas at any time likely to become my 
husband.’ ” 

Stay !” I cried. My heart swelled with the pain 
of remembrance, and I Avas angry at the seeming 
brutality of this revelation. ' “ Do not say such 
things ! It is not just to her, not merciful to me.” 


60 


A MODERif MIRACLE. 


“ Pray keep cool, Mr. Hunt ! I set out to aston- 
ish you, and I can’t stop at a trifle. Having told 
you what she said of you in the rosy days of our 
betrothal, I will presently let you know how she 
felt about you a short time after marriage. 

“ My friend, I shall be severely practical in the 
next ten minutes. I know what your feeling toward 
Georgia was in those days — is now, I presume. You 
thought— you still think — that there never was, 
never can be a woman like her. You have looked 
upon her as something better and higher than others 
of her sex. ' Yes, it was the old story! The man 
enraptured, the woman indifferent. Well, things 
are badly arranged in this curious world. You 
ought to have married her. From the bottom of 
my soul I wish you had 1” 

“ Is it kind for you to torment me in this way ?” 
I protested. stood in the way; you made it 

impossible for me to gain the happiness I craved ; 
and now ” 

‘‘ Softly, my dear sir 1 I haven’t time to argue 
the question ; I shall be content to state the facts. 
The truth is, /did not stand very much in your way. 
I never had those exalted sentiments toward the 
lady that you had. Did you ever hear of a wooing 
in which quite half of it was done by the woman ? 
Well, ours was of that kind.” 

“ Colonel Gorman, this is simply monstrous 1” 
“No, it is the. cold fact. You can understand, 
after that statement, what a weapon was in my 
hands when our differences began, as they did the 
same winter we were married. When madam would 


A MIRACLE. 


61 


almost go off into hysterics at the thought that she 
was chained to me for life, I was accustomed to re- 
tort, in the coolest fashion, ‘ You certainly ought to 
be able to bear it, my dear ; it is a condition of 
things which is largely of your own creation.’ ” 

^‘Poor, unhappy Georgia!” broke impulsively 
from my lips. 

‘‘Yes, you are right in pitying her ; we both de- 
serve pity for the terrible position in which our 
mutual folly has placed us. In all my grief and 
anger under the odious galling of my chains I never 
have failed to see that she suffered as severely as I 
did. And she has had my s^nnpathy — unexpressed, 
of course ; it has been a long day since a kind or 
generous word has passed between us. 

“^Now let me go back to the time of my marriage. 
You remember what preceded it. I had returned 
from the war, covered with glory ; the people were 
in a frenzy of admiration for the soldiers. That was 
natural enough; everywhere, at all times, military 
service has drawn the popular applause ; the man in 
uniform has been the little hero. It was the same 
at the South, of course ; our late enemies, now, for- 
tunately, our brethren, made everything of the 
home-returning soldiers in gray, and the smiles of 
the Southern ladies were for none others. 

“ I need not tell you how it was. There was a 
species of glamour in that time — a kind of intoxica- 
tion in the air. Everything went at high-pressure ; 
even the emotions of the heart were stimulated, and 
men and women fell in love — or thought they did — 
on small provocation. So it happened that the 


6^ 


A MOBEHN Miracle: 


woman whom you were ready to go crazy over, and 
I, became the victims of this fevered state of feeling 
and of our own short-sighted folly. We were 
married. 

^^Yes, we two — Ellard Gorman and Georgia 
Bard — as unthinkingly as two children in the hey- 
day of a frolic, stood up before many gratified wit- 
nesses, took each other for better, for worse, and 
promised to love and honor till death ! 

‘‘ My God, sir, think of it ! Think how that holy 
ordinance is. profaned every day by just such rash- 
ness ! Look around you and witness the domestic 
hells that^are created by men and women rushing 
headlong into those sweet and tender relations that 
were designed to create a heaven upon earth, in- 
stead of approaching them carefully, reverently, and 
with the full confidence of undying love ! 

“Well, Mr. Hunt, for our awful blunder let me 
take my full share of the blame. Let me not imi 
tate the cowardice of our first parent and say ‘ It 
was the woman,’ for I was a man well out of the 
foolishness of boyhood, with a man’s experience 
and knowledge of the world. I ought not to have 
mistaken my feelings, even if she did hers. 

“ What did I know about her ? Merely that she 
had a bright, handsome face, a graceful form, a 
ready and winning tongue, and that she was filled 
with admiration for me, as all the women were. I 
suppose my vanity was fiattered by the marked 
preference of the woman who was generally admit- 
ted to be the belle of Montville. Yes, that prob- 
ably lies at the root of my gigantic error. In the 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


63 


great evening-up and just assignment of censure 
and praise, I think it will turn out that the 
quickening of male vanity has made more fools on 
this planet than any other single cause. 

Did I ever stop to ask myself whether Georgia 
Bard was calculated by nature, or even education, to 
be a fitting companion to me all through life, and 
down to the grave ? Whether she could satisfy that 
hunger of the man’s heart which is sure to arise 
after marriage, if it does not before ? JSTot once ! 
She played brilliantly, she sung divinely (by Jove, 
sir, it’s a long time now since I’ve heard any music 
from her, I promise you), she was an excellent 
horsewoman, she conversed like a philosopher in 
petticoats, and she admired me. I w^as the only 
man in Montville who could win her. Not a very 
stable foundation was this, you’ll agree, on which to 
build hopes of w^edded bliss, but there was nothing 
stronger. Ours was the common error. 

“ On her part, what did she know of me ? Why, 
she saw me riding through the town, with silver 
eagles on my shoulders and my arm in a sling, at 
the head of my battalion of veterans ; she heard the 
cheers, and fluttered her handkerchief with the 
others. On closer acquaintance, she found that I 
was a good-looking fellow — why shouldn’t I say it ? — 
already quite well off, vrith first-rate prospects for 
the future, and much desired by the girls of Mont- 
ville. I suppose she did not, as I did not, submit to 
the serious self-examination that every man, every 
woman ought to make, before entering upon matri- 
mony.” 


64 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


“ I believe you do her injustice,” was my inter- 
ruption. “Before you came back from the war she 
talked with me in the most sedate and thou^tful 
way upon this very subject. In so many words she 
said to me ; ‘ Did you ever think how serious a 

thing it is for a man and a woman to take each other 
for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness 
and in health, to live together after God’s holy 
ordinance till death does them part V And when 
she finally and kindly said me Hay she told me this^ 
as positively as a woman could say it : ‘I tell you, 
after seeing and knowing Ellard Gorman I can 
never love another man ! Ho, not if my years 
should be prolonged to thousands.’ ” 

My voice grew husky and tremulous at the recol- 
lection. He nervously pulled at his mustache. 

“ Poor woman !” he said ; “ she sadly mistook her- 
self and me. But I must go on rapidly with the 
story. Mr. Hunt, I tell you there’s nothing like the 
estate of matrimony to exhibit a man and a woman to 
each other as they really are ! Ho room, no chance, 
then, for concealment or artifice; the real person 
comes out strongly in vivid colors. If it be, as we 
are told, that the utmost forbearance and considera 
tion are needed between those whom God has really 
joined, what must be the condition of those who 
awake after marriage to the conviction that there 
can never be love between them ! 

“ Before the snows of the winter of 1863-64 had 
vanished that awakening came to Georgia and I. 

“Why was it? — how was it? How can I ex- 
plain, only that the experience of those months 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


65 


convinced us both of our error. We were an ill- 
assorted pair. We had nothing in common but the 
fact that we were husband and wife. The knowl- 
edge came quickly and bluntly. Well, you’ve 
heard of such things in romance. Good God, I wish 
it were romance that I am telling, instead of woful 
truth! I have read, and you have, of men and 
women in this situation who have patiently and con- 
scientiously tried to develop love, and have suc- 
ceeded, in a measure. Oh, what bosh ! What stuff 
the novelists of to-day do give us ! Love — the real 
article — is too high and too holy a thing to be manu- 
factured as they make the pipe that we are going to 
use in our sewers. It comes itself, of its own accord, 
or it don’t come at all. You can’t whistle it to you, 
as if it were a poodle, and it won’t be coerced. You 
might as well try to imprison a rainbow and keep it 
on exhibition under a glass case in your parlor.” 

‘^Yet,” I interrupted, ‘‘you two have lived to- 
gether all this time with every appearance of happi- 
ness. How have you been able to keep up such a 
monstrous deceit ? Why, Georgia herself — poor 
woman ! — before you left us together this morning, 
gently reproved me for not coming to your house, 
urging me to come in future ; and no stranger could 
have suspected from the talk of both of you that 
there was anything but the most perfect happiness 
between you.” 

“Ah, yes! Such has been my management. In the 
Living Lie that we have illustrated I have always 
been the prime liar. Georgia has rather reluctantly 
followed my lead, because I have convinced her that 


66 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


my way was best. Intending to spare nothing in 
this confession, Mr. Hunt, I must speak of the explo- 
sion that occurred between us in the spring of 1864. 
Circumstances had been tending rapidly, toward a 
full explanation in words, and it came when I found 
Georgia in tears in her chamber. 

‘ What is the matter V I asked, realizing that a 
crisis was at hand. 

‘‘ ‘ I am the most wretched of women,’ she an- 
swered, with a small tempest of sobs and sighs. 

‘‘ ^ /, certainly, am not the happiest of men,’ was 
my rejoinder. 

“ ‘ 1 don’t believe you ever loved me !’ she almost 
screamed. 

‘ My dear Georgia, don’t excite yourself ! Give 
me credit for doing the best I could. As for love — 
there’s been none of it lost between us. Have you 
any claims to make on that score V 

‘ I might have married a man I did love — a man 
who loved me 1’ she said, getting hysterical and 
shedding a new flood of tears. 

‘ I believe that is so ; and most cordially do I re- 
gret that you did not marry the other man. But 
now, Mrs. Gorman, since we have at last reached an 
understanding, I propose that we make the best of 
the situation, and calmly consult about what ought 
to be done.’ 

“ ‘ There is only one thing to be done,’ she said, 
drying her tears. H will be a party to this 
wretched deceit no longer. I cannot remain bound 
to you all my life. W e must separate.’ 

‘ You are no doubt thinking of Chicago and the 


A MIRACLE. 67 

easy laws that prevail there on the subject of di- 
vorce. Eh, Georgia V 

“ Her silence admitted it. 

“ ‘ Well, then. I’ll tell you that I want nothing of 
the kind for myself or for you. I want to convince 
you that it will be far better for both of us to live 
right on, as though appearances were real, put a brave 
face on the hard situation, and make the best of it.’ 

‘‘(She wrung her hands in agony. / Oh, why do 
you insist on such a life of torment for me V she 
sobbed. ‘ I can’t — I won’t endure it.’ 

“ ‘ There are the best of reasons why. Since we 
have discovered that we cannot love each other, we 
should exercise common sense and good judgment as 
to our future relations. Ho doubt the Western di- 
vorce courts would kindly sunder our hateful bonds 
— it would be hard to find a marriage knot that they 
can’t untie — and you would be at liberty to contract 
new relations. As for me — that latter part of it is 
of no consequence. I am perfectly satisfied with 
my first experiment in this line, and have no desire 
to repeat it. But I candidly tell you, Mrs. Gorman, 
that I cannot bear the scandal, the publicity, the 
disgrace of such a thing. I am a man of some con- 
sequence already in Montville, as you well know. 
Though still young in years, I am in the sure way of 
prosperity ; fortune is smiling upon me, and I believe 
that a large career is opening before me. I expect 
to become a considerable figure in the politics of 
this city and county ; yes, even of the State. JSToth- 
ing hurts such prospects so much as domestic scan- 
dal. Say what you will, a man can’t attain the 


68 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


highest success who has parted with his wife. The 
public are swift to put him in fault, whether he 
ought to be or not. You see, therefore, Georgia, 
why I cannot afford^ upon my own account, to part 
with you.’ 

‘‘ Thus I spoke. She heard me with a hard, cold 
face, and replied, with a sneer : 

You are a chivalrous man. Colonel Gorman. 
Everything must bend to your own selfish advan- 
tage. I am to be cursed with your odious society 
all my life for your own personal advantage. You 
are capable of ’ 

“‘Wait!’ I interrupted. ‘You have looked upon 
only one-half the picture. You, woman as you are, 
can afford no better than I can to sever our bonds. 
'No wife, with no better cause than you have, ever 
did or ever can escape the odium of a divorce. It 
would cling to you all your life ; society, barely tol- 
erant of such a procedure, would find ways to ipake 
you feel its disapproval. The man you might be 
hardy enough to marry outside this State, thus es- 
caping prosecution for bigamy here, would quickly 
come to feel that he had made a terrible mistake. 
His love for you might end in loathing ; it would be 
of strong fiber if it did not. I tell you, Georgia, it 
is an awful thing for a woman to have two living 
husbands 1’ 

“ Ah, Mr. Hunt, you shudder at the picture ! So 
did she. I had touched her conscience, her self-in- 
terest as well ; she had seen enough of society to 
recognize the truth of what I said. Still, she could 
not agree to my view all at once. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


69 


“‘The alternative is a dreadful one,’ she said. 
‘ What hope can I have in deliberately living a lie 
and making a sacrifice of myself for appearances V 

“ ‘ The sacrifice, madam, is one that society and 
our own interest demand of us. Don’t suppose for 
an instant that we shall be the only couple who de- 
liberately and wisely make the best of the worst 
blunder that man and woman can make. I could 
point out to you several such cases, right Tiere in 
our little city, that I more than suspect ; not so con- 
spicuous as ours, but still of high enough position to 
create quite a shock, in case of an open rupture. We 
see and hear a great deal of domestic discord ; but, 
I assure you, there is a vast amount of it that exists 
generally unsuspected. And this is the wiser wa\^ 
l^either prussic acid, ‘wildcat’ divorce, nor open 
abandonment ever cured such ills as you and I are 
enduring. The real remedy is to endure them ; put 
on a smiling face, and never let the world know that 
you are a positive social failure. You speak of hope : 
well, there is one that may always be with you. 
Campbell does not enumerate it in his ‘ Pleasures,’ 1 
believe ; but he did not undertake to deal with this 
phase of modern society. There is always a fair 
prospect that such a hearty, robust fellow as I wifi 
go off with a snap. The strong men always die sud- 
denly. Try to live in view of such a desirable dis- 
pensation, Mrs. Gorman, and your condition may be 
more tolerable than you think. And now that I 
have clearly outlined your duty and polic}^ as well as 
mine, allow me to ask what you think of my advice?’ 

“ She made no reply ; she left the room abruptly, 


A IfODBJiJV MIRACLE. 


70 

as though she could l)ear no more. But as the 
weeks passed I perceived that she was practically 
acquiescing in my opinion. I need give you no 
more of these details ; you know what has occurred. 
We have presented a beautiful picture of domestic 
happiness to the world ; we have in fact been as 
much estranged as though the poles of the earth 
divided us.” 

He paused and looked inquiringly at me. My 
heart swelled painfully within me. At once I was 
regretful and glad. 

What do you think of it all ?” he asked. 

“ Your question is a painful one for me to answer,” 
I replied. I will not try to answer it. One thing 
I do say : if your way has been the best, your posi- 
tion has been very different from hers. It was easy 
for you^ who, as you admit, have not known what 
love was, to coolly recommend such a hypocritical 
course to her with the bitter brutality that you seem 
to have put into your language. As usual, the 
woman has borne the burden. She has had the 
double sorrow ; you, merely the wearing of a dis- 
tasteful yoke.” 

‘‘Your opinion would be quite correct, Mr. Hunt, 
had my statement given you all the facts. It is 
true enough that upon what you have heard 3^ou 
might call lu}^ advice selfish, my conduct cruel. 
Well, sir, I have for a year past had my own medi- 
cine put continually to my lips. Eetributive justice 
overtook me and made me suffer all that Georgia 
has. It came a year ago with your cousin, Julia 
Bement.” 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


71 


CHAPTEE YIII. 

THE NEW TANTALUS. ' 

A new light broke upon me upon hearing his 
words. 

“Mj cousin Julia!'’ I echoed. “What am I 
to understand by your mention of her name after 
what you have told me? What had she to do with 
your domestic unhappiness ? Colonel Gorman, I 
refuse to enter upon any conjectures or guesses as to 
your meaning. Please explain it ; my relationship 
to the lady gives me the right to demand it.” 

His face grew heavy and somber. 

“ The real cause of her leaving Montville lately 
has not transpired, I believe ?” 

“Ho, it has not. But, as you must be aware, her 
leaving has been a matter of general surprise. She 
was a popular favorite, was pleased with her situa- 
tion, and gave complete satisfaction.” 

“ She did not tell you her reason for leaving here ?” 
“iSTo. She distinctly refused to tell me, any 
further than that she was acting from a whim.” 

The strong man became violently agitated. Some- 
thing like a tremor shook him, and he controlled his 
emotion with difficulty. 

“ She kept her secret, of course,” he said. “ I am 
not satisfied with myself for revealing it to you 


72 


A MIRACLE. 


now. But one disclosure has followed another, be- 
ginning almost by accident. I surely may trust 
to your discretion when I seek the poor relief of 
thus unburdening myself, and I have an object in so 
doing which you shall soon learn. Mr. Hunt, I tell 
you that others are bearing a heavy cross beside 
Georgia and yourself and me. The noble, perfect 
creature I have named bears one. Her life has been 
clouded by the effect of that delusion which caused 
me to wed Georgia Bard. She abruptly left this 
people because she could not in honor remain here 
longer. In other words, she fled from 

I listened with such an amazement as had not 
been mine in all his previous confession, waiting 
eagerly for him to go on. 

“ I have made you understand, I think,” he con- 
tinued, that it was not difficult for me to play the 
part that I recommended to Georgia on the occa- 
sion of our free explanation. I was disappointed in 
her — that was all. I knew there could never be 
anything like a union of hearts or souls between us 
two, and I resolved to put up with the disappoint- 
ment and make the best of it. I had no other pas- 
sion to contend with ; there was no other woman’s 
face to waylay me in my hours of weakness and 
despondence and overcome my resolution. The 
beautiful women of Montville, married and unmar- 
ried, I admired in just the sense that men of heart 
and principle will everywhere admire the sex — tem- 
perately, chastely and chivalrously. I can truly af- 
firm that before Julia Bement came to vex what 
peace I had, I loved no woman. Following my 


A MIRACLIS. 


n 

practical estrangement from Georgia, I had turned 
with renev/ed zeal to business and to politics, and 
was finding compensation in their contests and ex- 
citements. 

And then — she came. 

“ My secret, and hers, as you are a witness, never 
escaped us ; it was religiously guarded ; even Geor- 
gia never had suspected it, when, in my bitterness 
of heart, my almost madness, I avowed it to her. I 
had put a rigid sentry on guard over my eyes, my 
speech, my acts ; for the year past I have labored 
under a self-discipline to which few men in my situ- 
ation would submit. 

‘‘But it was all over with me from the first mo- 
ment that I met her, saw her, heard her voice. Ah, 
Hunt, there is a woman for whom a man might be 
happy to die; to live with whom would be bliss 
itself ! 

“ I met her frequently on my visits to the school 
as one of the Board ; at my house, Avhere she came 
in the way that all the best people of Montville 
came. I was not long in satisfying myself that her 
quick intelligence and perception had pierced the 
sham which Georgia and I were showing to the 
world, and that she perfectly understood what kind 
of relations existed between us. She made no re- 
mark upon the discovery ; politeness forbade that ; 
but I saw it sufficiently in her face. 

“Well, sir, I struggled long and hard against this 
new passion. It was a hopeless struggle from the 
first ; but I desperately kept it up. I tried to prac- 
tice for myself the philosophy that I had so calmly 


u 


A MODEUN MIRACLE, 


commended to Georgia, and I failed. Yes, Hunt, 
let me make my wretched confession full ; as the 
months went on, the frenzy of this secretly cherished 
love brought me to the very brink of the precipice. 
I became willing, for her sake, in possessing her, to 
sacrifice everything that I had held dear and had 
suffered to retain — honor, position, prospects, 
wealth; all, all, if she would fly with me. Was I 
insane, for the time, to wish to throw away every- 
thing that I had cherished to enjoy such an illicit 
love ? I do not know ; other men, as well balanced 
as I, have allowed themselves to be drawn into the 
same frightful vortex and hurried to their destruc- 
tion. It is charitable, perhaps, to call it temporary 
madness.’’ 

‘^Ah!” I interrupted him, with exultation, “but 
you .counted vainly when you addressed that wo- 
man in such a way ! She taught you a lesson. I’ll 
be bound.” 

“ You shall hear. I sought her — no matter where 
— I secured an interview with her in such a way 
that there was absolute privacy, without danger of 
suspicion. Then I poured out my whole heart to 
her. I told her everj-Thing — my fatal mistake in 
my marriage ; the domestic torment that I was en- 
during, that Georgia was enduring ; the hypocrisy 
of our lives before the world, which my soul was 
loathing ; my love for herself, which would last with 
life and beyond it. Ah, Hunt, my dear fellow, I 
never talked as I did in that hour ! I implored her 
to rescue me from the daily degradation and ^re- 
proach of my acted lie. I argued to her, plausibly 


A M0DBE2V MIEAGLE, 


75 


enough, as you may concede, that it would be better 
even for Georgia if, by my flight and abandonment 
of her, I should break her weary chains and allow 
her to secure legal freedom from me.” 

He paused, rather overcome by the remembrance 
of that interview. 

‘^And her answer?” I eagerly demanded. 

“Yes — wait. Such a woman! I watched her 
face while I was pleading with her ; though a trifle 
pale, it expressed neither anger nor surprise. At 
this point of my appeal, seeing that I faltered with 
eagerness and the stress of my passion, she spoke. 

“ ^ Go on,’ she said ; ^ I hear 3"ou. I permit you to 
speak in this way to me, and I will tell you why 
presenth^ What further do you wish to say V 

“Hardly knowing whether to be encouraged or 
chilled by such a reception, I rapidly told her the 
rest. Of course I repeated that everything in Mont- 
ville must be given up for her ; in fact I must make an 
exile of myself in cleaving to her ; but that I was 
read}^ and eager to do. Also, the larger part of my 
estate must be given up ; I would leave it for Georgia. 
Hot only necessity but justice demanded that this 
be so. Yet I should be able to provide amply for 
the future of Julia and myself. I had abundance 
of . ready money, and valuable securities — the bonds 
of the United States and our best railroad corpora- 
tions — on which I could easily realize a hundred 
thousand dollars in Hew York in two hours. Our 
flight should be carefully arranged, so as to put 
previous suspicion and detention at fault. This day 
was Tuesday ; on the following Thursday, at night. 


76 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


we would leave town in a livery-conveyance, travel 
half the night, take the railroad at a station twenty- 
five miles below, reach New York on Friday, and 
on the next day take a steamship for Liverpool.* 
Arrived in the Old World, our life should be just 
what she might desire. We would seek seclusion 
and privacy somewhere in France, Italj^, or even 
Egypt, and in the realization of our love would for- 
get everything but ourselves. 

Such was my plan, urged upon her with glow- 
ing and vehement ardor. I sought to take her hand ; 
she repulsed me. How can I tell you how stern her 
superb face looked — and yet, what pity dwelt in 
those regal eyes ! 

‘ Colonel Gorman,’ she calmly said, ‘ I think you 
are a coward !’ 

‘‘ I began to protest my surprise at her language. 
She abruptly stopped me. 

“ ‘ I knew much of what you have said months 
ago,’ she continued. ‘ I am not dull ; what I did not 
know for a certainty I have easily guessed. The 
truth as to your relations with your wife I was at 
no loss to discover ; that you admired me — even 
loved me, as you should not — I have understood. 
You have been discreet and careful, but your eyes 
and your manner have spoken out to me long before 
to-day. Colonel Gorman, you are a man ! You are 
strong in all the things m which men ought to be 
strong — or at least you have been so. You have 
jealously guarded your good name and your stand- 

*The reader need hardly to be reminded that the Atlantic cable was 
not in successful operation till July 27, 1866, which fact should be taken 
into account in calculating the probable success of this scheme. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


77 


ing in this community ; you have been so severe and 
cautious in doing it that you have insisted upon that 
poor woman, your wedded wife, suffering in silence 
with you; and she, certainly, ought not to share 
more than half the blame of your present misery, as 
I know it. All this I have seen and understood. I 
have secretly admired you for your brave reticence 
and self-control. I hoped it would continue — I 
trusted it would — to the end of my year. That will 
be only three weeks from now. I had resolved to 
leave Montville then, and to remove with my ab- 
sence the object of your disturbance.’ 

Her steady voice faltered a little ; she stopped, 
with an emotion that her face scarcely showed, but 
which I perfectly understood. I rushed to her ; my 
arms were about her waist ; I kissed her lips and 
murmured in her ear vows of eternal fidelity, hopes 
of an earth-long happiness. 

Seeming at first to yield, she quickly wrested 
herself from my embrace. She fled from my arms ; 
her face expressed horror ; her hands were out- 
stretched to repulse me. 

‘ Oh, J ulia !’ I pleaded. ‘ Why are you so cruel to 
me ? You admit that 3^011 admired me ; you mean that 
you loved me. Confess it, now ; consent to what I 
urge, and we shall be happy together.’ 

Her dark cheek flushed; her hands were clinched ; 
I looked upon her glorious presence — ah. Heaven ! 
such a wmman as was never before sent on earth ! — 
and I could not but see that she was then and there 
fighting out the stern battle between love and 
duty. 


78 


A JfODIJBJV' MIRACLE. 


‘^‘Yes, 1 have loved you; I love you now!’ she 
answered. ^You force me to the confession, and 
therein I say you are cowardly! Think of your 
duty and mine ! Is not yours the larger of the two ? 
If I could be capable of yielding to your base pro- 
posal, could I shame any one but m^^self? My 
cousin, perhaps, of distant kin; he is all. But 
you — think of it! You would give up not alone 
your duty to your wife — and such she is, whether 
you love her or not — but your duty to yourself, to 
this people, to your honor and fame. All this you 
would yield for a guilty love of me !’ 

‘‘‘Yes,’ I cried, ‘all that, and more. I would 
give up everything for the possession of your love ; 
all that earth has, all that heaven can promise.’ 

“Her face was still resolute and fixed, but a 
despairing smile struggled through. 

“ ‘ Then,’ she said, ‘ you must take that way alone. 
I cannot walk it with you. I would not if I could. 
I have heard all you had to say ; now let this inter- 
view close. Ellard Gorman, I pity you ; my love 
must be withheld. At the close of my year I shall 
leave Montville ; you will know the real reason. 
Give me your hand ; seek me no more, or you will 
hasten my flight. Let us trust that we shall meet 
in a happier world, where joy instead of bitterness 
will be dealt out to God’s suffering children.’ 

“ Her luminous eyes glistened with tears, and her 
face was turned from us. I tried to take new hope 
from her countenance ; again I sought to embrace 
her, and again I was repulsed. My soul went out in 
a last despairing cry to her ; unconsciously, I used 


A MIRACLA 79 

in part the words that Georgia had uttered in her 
frantic appeal two years before. 

“ ‘ Oh, Julia, pray think of what I have said before 
you thus send me away to despair ! I have offered 
you happiness ; why can you not take it ? What 
hope can I have in this life without you V 

She stood before me, grand, magnificent in her 
regal presence, her beautiful face eloquent with the 
sentiments that she expressed. 

“‘What hope? The Christian’s hope ! You suf- 
fer; she, your wretched wife, suffers; and in the 
affection with which you have inspired me against 
my will, I, too, must suffer to the end. Well, what 
of that? We were all made to mourn ; if a cross is 
given us, let us each carry it bravely, patiently. So 
I will ; so must you ; so must we all. These are the 
precepts that I learned at my mother’s knee ; a mer- 
ciful Saviour does not permit me to forget them. 
This is your way and mine. Farewell ! Do not 
seek me in private again ; you will only hasten my 
departure. If you pray, beseech God that we meet 
in another and happier world.’ 

“ She offered me her cheek ; I clasped her in my 
arms and kissed her lips. She shrunk, fainting, from 
me ; and I fled from that apartment, knowing that 
peace could never visit my heart again on earth.” 


80 


A MODmj^ MIRACLE. 


CHAPTER IX. 

A BRIEF FAREWELL. 

H e paused. He drew his hat down moodily 
over his eyes ; he turned his face from me as 
he sat there on the grass and seemed lost in sad in- 
trospection. 

For ten miles west of the Montville station the 
railway runs in a straight course, and there is little 
wood or other obstruction between. Looking that 
way now, in the pause that came upon me as well 
as him — for my thoughts struggled tumultuously 
and confusedly for utterance after what I had heard 
— I saw a faint feather of smoke rising above the 
little skirt of trees down the track. I called his at- 
tention to it. 

“Yes, that’s the train,” he replied. “Pm glad 
I’ve had time to say all I wished to say to you. 
Come along. Is there anything you have to sug- 
gest ? Speak quick if there is ; my time is short, 
and I have a little more to add.” 

“ Have you told me all that there is to tell about 
my cousin?” 

“Yes; what more could there be? I did not see 
her again after that crushing interview ; I dared not 
seek her; she left Montville three, weeks later, as 
you know, and with her went out all the light and 
cheer of this sorrowful world.” 


A MODER]^ MIRACLE. 


81 


“ Do you write to her 

“ I don’t even know where she has gone. If you 
know you had better not tell me ; the temptation to 
do something weak and useless had better be kept 
from me.” 

He gave me his hand. My feelings broke out be- 
yond control. 

“ To what end have you told me all this ?” I cried. 
“ "Why was it necessary to rake out the buried fires 
of my unfortunate love? You have succeeded in 
making me more miserable than I expected ever to 
be again. And Julia — why could you not have kept 
that wretched secret ? Why burden me with 
it ?” 

‘‘Hunt, this is a world of change. Ho to-mor- 
row is like to-day ; change is the law of our being ; 
death is busy all around us. I may go first ; I am 
most likely to. Should that happen, I want you to 
send my dying message to your cousin. I’ll write it 
out, seal it up and deliver it to you in trust when I 
return from Hew York. I executed my will some 
time ago, giving everything to Georgia, as is her 
right ; and I’ve made you co-executor with her. 
Should anything happen to me, remember that it is 
to be found in the inner chamber of my safe. And 
I want to make a written request to Georgia, on a 
separate paper — so it needn’t be made public, you 
know — a request that she provide liberally for Julia 
out of her great abundance. This shall be seen to 
later. It strikes me. Hunt, that there’s great pro- 
priety in making you co-executor, for you’ll un- 
doubtedly be my successor at Gorman place.” 


A MODmn MmAGL£ 


How can you trifle so ?” I remonstrated. 

^Ht is no trifling. You may be a happy man be- 
fore the buds of two more springs have blossomed. 
But should it be otherwise ; if we four are fated to 
live on in weariness and misery to old age, cursed 
by the error of Georgia and myself, then ” 

He paused and looked deliberately into my agi- 
tated face. 

‘‘Well? What then r 

“Hunt, women always bear such things better 
than men. They smile while the iron is entering 
their souls. Y ou and I can at least be men. Any 
weak fool that bears the semblance of a man can 
give up, break down, and run away from the mis- 
eries of life ; it takes a man to face them. Let 
us be brave, my friend, and leave the rest to 
God.” 

He gave me a strong grip with his sinewy hand. 
We crossed the tracks again to the platform ; a dozen 
men gathered about the Mayor to take him by the 
hand, to wish him a pleasant journey and a safe re- 
turn. He had a smile and a kind word for each ; no 
man could have guessed, from his buoyant manner 
and sunny aspect, that his heart within him was 
bowed down with hopeless grief. The train thun- 
dered in ; there was the usual stir and bustle of ar- 
riving and departing passengers, the changing of 
baggage, and the cries of hackmen and hotel-run- 
ners ; then the shriek of escaping steam ceased, the 
bell rung, and with the conductor’s “All aboard !” 
the train swept away. Ellard Gorman stood on a 
car-platform, waved his hand, and called to me 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


83 


Good-by, Hunt, till next week !” His tall, erect 
figure and smiling face vanished ; and, as in the 
most serious moments trifles are noted, I happened 
to observe how plainly his smile showed the elabor- 
ate gold-filling of his front upper teeth. 


84 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


CHAPTEK X. 

WHAT THE LIGHTNING BROUGHT. 

I WALKED back to my store, shut myself up in 
the office in the rear of it, and tried to think 
about the occurrences of the last two hours. 

I lingered for awhile over my meeting and con- 
versation with Mrs. Gorman ; but I had no trouble 
to understand her. Gratifying to my pride, sadly 
consoling to my bruised heart as was the discovery 
that her life with her husband had filled her with 
poignant regret that she had preferred him to me, 
yet I did not mistake her. She had appealed to my 
honor to keep that hasty and incautious disclosure 
buried in my breast ; I had sworn to do so. She had 
bade me never seek her, remembering honor and 
duty above all ; she had sternly denied me hope in 
this world ; as, indeed, how could she do otherwise ? 
The virtue of good women redeems a fallen race 
from utter badness ; and even in the severest pangs 
of my grief, as I regarded the woman I loved, who 
still loved me, as placed for all time beyond mjr 
reach — still, my finer feelings were touched by the 
lofty reply that Georgia had given me, that Julia 
had given Ellard Gorman. My conscience was 
aroused and awakened ; my inmost soul cried out, 
‘Mt is well!” 


A MOBJSRW MIRACLE, 


85 


But as for the Colonel — what was I to think of 
his confession, his advice, his stern philosophy and 
noble resolves for the future ? 

In all my business dealings with him, which had 
been many; in all our personal intercourse, I had 
found him the embodiment of truth. Candor and 
frankness had characterized every word and act. 

What reason had I to doubt his sincerity now? 

I reviewed our long conversation, and was forced 
to admit that there was no apparent reason. Never 
did truth appear so plainly upon the surface of a 
confession. His emotion at certain points in it was 
of the kind that could not be simulated. He had not 
spared himself in self-condemnation ; that bitterest 
of all judgment he had administered with unsparing 
tongue. His motives for laying bare his soul to me 
had been plainly stated, and were sufficient to justify 
the act. Whence, then, was my doubt? 

Is the wish ever father to the thought, among 
striving, dissatisfied men? Did the sudden suspicion 
which Colonel Gorman saw unspoken in my eyes, 
and promptly repudiated — the suspicion that he was 
leaving Montville forever — did it now haunt my 
mind because I wished that it might be true ? 

Think as I might, reflect as I would upon all I 
had heard, my thoughts traversed a circle which 
regularly brought me to the idea — perhaps he 
never will come back. 

Yexed at myself for adhering so closely to this 
suspicion in the face of the strong facts that made 
it seem idle and unjust, I quitted the store and went 
over to the hotel to dinner. Across the table from 


86 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


me sat several of the business youn^ men of the 
town, and their talk soon drifted to the person who 
was just then occupying my thoughts. 

‘‘I saw you at the station this morning, Mr. 
Hunt,” said one of them. Went over to wish the 
Mayor hon myage^ I suppose 

^‘Yes.”- 

“Well, I was glad to see so many there on the 
same errand.” 

“ So was I,” said another. “ Attentions to such a 
man as that are well placed.” 

“ A great credit to our city, sir,” remarked num- 
ber three. “ But I predict that his field of useful- 
ness will soon be widened.” 

“ That it will ! Colonel Gorman is certain of the 
nomination and election to Congress this fall.” 

“ He won’t stop there, either. The State has high 
honors in store for him within the next ten years.” 

Thus they talked, without a dissenting voice, as to 
his merit and his brilliant prospects. And I knew 
that what they expressed was a fair sample of the 
opinions of Montville. 

This day was Wednesday. Somewhat mechanic- 
ally I went the round of the week’s duties, retain- 
ing sufficient presence of mind to attend to my busi- 
ness and direct my clerks, while abstraction and 
heaviness ruled me. Once Mrs. Gorman, riding in 
her carriage, met me. I raised my hat ; spite of my 
promise and my resolution I longed for her to stop, 
that I might again talk with her, face to face ; but 
she bowed coldly and passed on. 

Sunday came. I was at church, as usual; the 




most fashionable place of worship in our city. 
Looking over to the Gorman pew, I saw that it was 
vacant, which was unusual. 

The man who attends a place of worship after in- 
dulging for days and nights in thoughts and imagi- 
nations that merely border on the sinful, will be apt 
to hear his accusation pronounced in the sacred edi- 
fice. It was so with me. The services went on in 
their accustomed way, I scarcely taking note of 
them, when the words uttered by the minister fell 
upon my ear — “ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s 
wife !” The guilty blood flew to my face ; I could 
have fancied the absurdity that all the congregation 
were looking at me. 

ISTor was this all. I heard the Bible story of the 
accusation of David read, and at the words Thou 
art the man 1” I cast down my eyes. Had my own 
name been spoken I could not have felt more 
directly accused. 

The lesson was a tonic to my resolution. I mused 
all the remainder of the day upon the harassing 
situation, and grew calmer. The antidote that has 
saved thousands of men from insanity or suicide can 
save you,” I reflected. Quit musing and maunder- 
ing : go to work with a will ; try hard, unflagging toil 
of mind.” In this mood I began the week. Early 
and late, Monday and Tuesday, I was at desk and 
counter ; steady occupation drove the demon of 
unrest and tantalizing suggestion from my brain, 
and I was enabled to enjoy two nights of unbroken 
rest and sleep. 

Wednesday came round again; Colonel Gorman 


88 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


would return this day. I had not heard directly 
from him, but a mutual friend told me of a letter he 
had received from him to that effect. In fact, the 
letter had been shown to me. It was written on 
the paper of the Hotel Kremlin, with a cut of that 
great building on the upper third of it ; it bore date 
the previous Saturday, and was written in Gorman’s 
well-known dashing characters. The body of it re- 
lated entirely to some private business ; a postscript 
added : ‘‘ I shall reach home AY ednesdav, without 
fail.” 

I had no reason to dread his appearance, but the 
words haunted me all the morning. The old, un- 
worthy wish was struggling again within me. Koon 
came, and one o’clock ; I was not hungry, but 
feverish, and remained at my place of business. 
There the telegraph messenger found me; I tore 
open the envelope, and read : 

Hotel Kremlin hnrned uj) last night. Colonel Gor- 
man dead in the ruins. Break it to his wife. . 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


89 


CHAPTEK XI 


IN THE SHADOW 



‘HE PAPER dropped from my hand ; my head 


X fell upon rny breast; I almost felt that this 
startling realization of the wicked wish against 
which I had struggled so long and sorely had made 
me a murderer in heart, if not in deed ! I was faint 
and dizzy ; I saw through the glass-door the coun- 
ters, shelves and varied goods of my store, the clerks 
and the customers ; but all were blended in a con- 
fused whirl. Just then Alvin Baker came in with a 
hurried step. 

1 must have left the Mayor’s letter with you,” 

he said. “ I can’t find it, and But, good God, 

man, what’s the matter with you ? You’re as white 
as a sheet, and vou shake as if you had the palsy ! 
What is it r 

I silently handed him the dispatch. He read it, 
and clutched the desk for support. 

Heavens !” he ejaculated. ‘‘ This is dreadful ! 
The Colonel dead ? Why, it don’t seem possible ! In 
so frightful a way, too ! What’s to be done ? Shall 
I give it to the afternoon paper — have the dispatch 
])osted on the bulletin-board ?” 

‘‘Xo,” I replied. ‘Hlis wife must be told, first. 
Yv'ill you — won’t you go and tell her ?” 

Xot I ! I’ve the slightest acquaintance with her. 


90 


MODERN MIRACLE, 


You know her well; you must do it. Stay here; 
I’ll order a carriage for you ;” and he hurried away. 

In ten minutes I was at Gorman place. The serv- 
ant at the door took my card and ushered me into 
the same parlor where the previous interview had 
occurred. In a few moments she returned, saying 
that her mistress was indisposed and begged to be 
excused. 

Go back,” was my abrupt command, and say 
to her that I will see her. Tell her that I will take 
no refusal ; that I shall stay here till she comes to 
me.” 

I waited full half an hour before I saw her. In 
the interim the servant once came into the parlor, 
with the excuse of arranging the furniture ; but I 
well understood that she had been sent to see and 
report whether I still remained. 

At last Georgia entered. My mind was agitated 
by my dreadful mission, yet I could not but observe 
how the pallor of her face was set off by the dark 
material of her wrapper, and how exquisitely beau- 
tiful was that suffering face. But now it bore a 
faint tinge of red, and her deep gray eyes had a 
warning glow as they met mine. 

‘‘ Weldon,” she said, firmly, ‘‘ this is not manly of 
you. What madness possesses you ? Foolish man ! 
this conduct may bring me to hate you. I can add 
nothing to what I said the other day ; I have come 
down now only to tell you so — not to hear a word 
from your lips. Go ! I cannot, will not expose my- 
self to ” 

She paused as I held up the dispatch ; something 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


91 


in my face also warned her. She took the paper, 
read it, and was sinking to the floor when I caught 
her in my arms. It was a dead swoon ; she lay 
there perfectly unconscious, her lips slightly parted, 
her long lashes resting on her white cheeks. 

I laid her on the sofa and rang the bell. Before 
the servant came I was tempted to press my lips to 
hers ; but I successfully resisted the temptation ; it 
seemed like sacrilege. 

Kestoratives were brought ; with a deep sigh con- 
sciousness returned ; the eyelids folded heavily back. 
She saw me, she saw the maid. 

You may go, Marie,” she said. 

Again we were alone. Her strength suddenly re- 
turned ; she sat up and faced me. 

“ Is that all you know ?” she whispered, holding 
up the dispatch, clutched in her Angers. 

“ That is all. I hurried to you on receiving it.” 

‘^Do you believe it?” 

I see no reason to doubt it.” 

Her head drooped ; she seemed to sink ; without 
remonstrance I placed my arm about her and held 
her up. 

It is sudden,” she said. It is terrible. saw 
him last night in a dream. He was very pale.” 

And seeming to overlook my presence, she added, 
as one might soliloquize : 

“ He was sometimes kind ; once I thought I loved 
him. May God forgive me ; I refused his kiss when 
he went away !” 

She shuddered and started from my arm. A flood 
of tears came to her relief. 


92 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


Georgia,’’ I found voice to say, regard me now 
only as a friend. Tell me what you wish, and it 
shall be done.” 

Her voice was steady again as she answered : 

“ Thank you, Weldon. You know what to do; 
what ought to be done. You were his friend ; 3^ou 
will be just ; you will be generous to his memory, 
as I will try to be. Helieve me of all the care you 
can, now. I am sorely stricken ; conscience accuses 
me; I want to be alone. Will you do what should 
be done, in my name 

I eagerly consented. I saw she was still faint 
and weak. I summoned the maid, and, leaning on 
her arm, Mrs. Gorman returned to her chamber. 

She glanced over her shoulder as she left the 
room. The painfully-drawn face was lighted with 
a faint glow of gratitude ; and even in that time of 
shock and sorrow I looked hopefully forward to the 
time to come. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


93 


CHAPTEE XII. 

OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT. 

S HOCKED as I was by the news of the morning, 
agitated also by my brief interview with the 
newly-made widow, it was not in human nature — 
at least it was not in my nature — to confine my 
thoughts to the present q[uestions of public loss and 
private bereavement which crowded close upon the 
announcement of Ellard Gorman’s death. My im- 
agination would reach forward through the months 
to come, continuously pointing to a happiness which 
but an hour before I had desperately deemed to be 
utterly beyond my reach. By these swelling emo- 
tions together I was, upon leaving the mansion, so 
disturbed and unmanned that I felt it unsafe for me 
to return immediately to the busy streets of the 
city. I wished it not to be observed that the stun- 
ning news had affected me more or differently than 
it did others who might be thought to stand quite 
as near to the deceased in later years as I had. I 
wanted no curious tongues set wagging over the 
question as to why I should be more affected than 
they. So I dismissed the carriage and took a 
wide circuit afoot, walking rapidly in the effort to 
calm my excitement. In an hour I had reached a 
low range of hills overlooking our city. I gazed at 
the fair prospect, the spires, the smoking chimneys 


94 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


of the factories, the streets and dwellings, with the 
thronging signs of industry and busy life, and then 
thought of the foremost man of this thriving com- 
munity. But a brief week before I had seen his 
springing step on the street, his smiling, manly face, 
and heard his hearty voice ; over there at the sta- 
tion he had grasped my hands and waved me fare- 
well, calling out cheerily, ‘‘Good-by, Hunt, until 
next week !” And now I was told that he was dead 
— buried under the black and smoking ruins of the 
great hotel in the metropolis. Merciful God, what 
a death — for such a man ! I could not make it seem 
real. 

I threw myself down upon the grass, clasped my 
hands over my eyes to shut out, if possible, that 
horrible, hideous vision ; and presently, recalling all 
that he had said to me in those last moments that I 
saw him face to face, I was startled to note the 
prophecy that his language contained : “ Hunt, 

this is a world of change. Ho to-morrow is like to- 
day ; change is the law of our being ; death is busy 
all around us. I may go first. I am most likely 
to.” Much else that he had said in that hour plainly 
indicated to me now that something like a present- 
iment of approaching death was working in his 
mind. With this clearly seen, all possible doubt as 
to his motive in making so full a confession to me 
vanished. He had wished me to know all ; antici- 
pating a speedy end, regarding me only with friend- 
ship and kindness, he had thought it only just to me 
that I should know everything in order to make my 
way easier in becoming one day his successor as the 


A MOBBIiJV MIRACLE, 


95 


husband of Georgia. I started at the coarseness of 
the suggestion ; and yet, Avhy should it discompose 
me ? It was exactly like his, candor to have avowed 
it in so many words, had I pressed him upon the 
point ; he had more than hinted such a thing. 

The afternoon sun was declining while I lay there, 
thinking, struggling to calm myself in the over- 
whelming situation. Satisfied that I could noAV at 
least show myself in the streets without exciting re- 
mark as to my appearance and conduct, I rose and 
rapidly walked back to the city. As I struck the 
principal business street, I observed the unusual col- 
lection of men in knots upon the sidewalk ; agitation 
and excitement were visible in most of the faces ; 
before the bulletin-board outside a neAVspaper office 
two hundred Avere gathered. . Elbowing my way 
through, I perceived that the board shoAved - merely 
the bare fact that was contained in my dispatch. I 
went to the telegraph office and learned that nothing 
further had been received. I Avrote a telegram for 
one of the clerks of the burned hotel, Avhose name 
Avas signed to my dispatch, asking further particu- 
lars, and the operator immediately began sending it. 
I Avas passing out Avhen he spoke to me. 

You had better Avait, Mr. Hunt. I learn from 
Hew York that the person to Avhom this is addressed 
is noAV in their office and Avill ansAver at once.” 

I did Avait ; and in less than five minutes the fol- 
loAving AA^as handed me : 

Colonel Gorman’s body just taken from ruins. 
Much burned, but positively identified by front teeth 
and seal ring. See to-day’s Herald, 


96 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


I sent this message to the newspaper office for 
posting, and went to my store. By this time boys 
were crying the hTew York papers of that morning, 
with full accounts of the burning of the Kremlin and 
death of Mayor Gorman. I purchased one and hur- 
ried into my office to read it. A letter lay on my 
desk, bearing the Kew York post-mark of the previ- 
ous day, addressed to myself. I looked at the hand- 
writing, and the shock made my head whirl. It was 
perfectly natural that he should write to me ; but 
how it startled me to receive the letter after news of 
his death had reached me ! 

Inside the envelope I found four sheets of the 
Hotel Kremlin paper, covered with Ellard Gorman’s 
well-known chirography and signed with his name. 
A liberal extract from the letter must be made here, 
though some of it may be omitted ; but in the whole 
of it there was nothing contrary to the tenor of 
what is now given : 

My dear fellow, I have now been in Kew York a 
whole week, and mine eyes are aching for the sight 
of dear little Montville! Ko place like home, et 
GCBtera. If I may not say that I long to meet all 
the inhabitants of our beautiful burgh (you know 
what I mean), at least I may avow that I am genu- 
inely, in a general sense, homesick. According to 
programme, made when I left Montville, and in- 
tended to be punctually and literally fulfilled, I shall 
leave here (H. Y.) at six o’clock a. m. of the mor- 
row; and had I thought to invite you to a two 
o’clock dinner on that day, at my mansion, it would 
perhaps have been well. 

And perhaps not! Hunt, you remember that I 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


97 


opened my heart to you that morning, a week past, 
while we were waiting at the station. I astonished 
you. ^^ow I may astonish you more. 

I tried not to be downhearted; I trust that I 
impressed you, all the way through my doleful 
story, as a man who was bound and determined to 
bravely face his crushing misfortune and smile in 
the Avorld’s face, just as though the vulture was not 
tearing his vitals. 

Did I succeed ? I think I did. 

There is one point, however, which, upon reflec- 
tion, I doubt whether I made sufficiently plain to 
you. It was the only matter in our conversation 
that really embarrassed me. 

When you bewailed the hardness of Fate, or 
whatever it be that moves us about like puppets, in 
thoroughly providing for the misery of us four in 
this world, and I tried to reassure "and encourage 
you by declaring that I should probably not live 
very long, I believe that I failed entirely in convey- 
ing my whole meaning to you. 

I hesitated to tell jou what was uppermost in 
my mind. I am a practical man of affairs, and have 
gained large credit and confidence among men, as 
you can witness, by my shrewd common sense and 
good judgment. The ‘Devel-head” is what my host 
of friends and admirers have attributed to me. 

Therefore you can understand my embarrass- 
ment in even trying to say to you, Hunt, I have a 
strong presentiment that I shall never come back 
from New York alive. Something tells me that I 
shall never look upon Montville again.” Had I said 
that to you, knowing me as well as you do, you 
might reasonably have doubted my sanity. 

And yet, that is precisely as I fel]!; then — as I 
feel now ! 

I will not reason with you about it ; I utterly re- 
fuse to argue the case, 1 will not even say that I 


98 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


am not silly and childish. "What I do say is that I 
hadj when I bade yon farewell at the Montville sta- 
tion, a strong, overpowering presentiment, of speedy 
death; that it has been with me ever since, is with 
me now. 

Hence this long letter. If it really be that I am 
not to return, show it to Georgia. Tell her that I 
rely upon her generosity, upon her woman’s sense of 
justice, to give J ulia fifty thousand dollars. I charge 
Weldon Hunt, to see that this is done! I can- 
not think that Georgia will need persuasion to this 
end ; but should she demur, remind her of the facts. 
Recall to her all that I told her in my madness, after 
Julia had repulsed me. Georgia well knows how 
nobly that woman’s strong and virtuous soul stood 
out against the impulses of her heart ; she knows — 
for I told her everything — how Julia Bement saved 
me, from myself. Yet I have clouded the whole fu- 
ture of her for whom and for whose happiness — I 
hesitate not' to say it — I would offer my life. To 
Georgia, then, through you, I would say. Don’t, 
don’t refuse what may be my dying request ! I 
leave you, Georgia, with a fortune of which you 
cannot spend the income. The sum that I ask for 
Julia is miserably small as a reward for her adher- 
ence to honor and duty — little enough as compensa- 
tion for her sufferings. 

Farewell, Weldon — farewell, Georgia! I am 
warned by something beyond my power to compre- 
hend that I shall not see the face of either of you 
again in the flesh. You believe you will be happier 
without me; may experience fully iustify that 
belief! Tell all this to Julia. 

In the newspaper I read the following : 

Burnino of the Hotel Kremlin. — The well- 
known and extensive establishment of this name on 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


99 


Broadway near Eighteenth Street was totally de- 
stroyed by fire last night. The alarm was given at 
half-past ten, afid by midnight the whole great 
edifice was reduced to blackened walls and smoking 
ruin. Barely is destruction by fire so complete and 
rapid. Its origin is a mystery, and will probably 
remain so ; no theory yet advanced can account for 
the fact that the building was on fire in three dif- 
ferent stories, and in several places in each story, at 
the same time. A brisk wind quickly fanned these 
separate flames into one roaring conflagration, which 
seemed to sweep away floors, inner partitions, roofs 
and contents as if by magic. The efforts of the fire 
department were wisely directed to confining the 
fire to this juilding, in which they succeeded ; it was 
early seen that it would be idle to throw water into 
that seething pit of white-hot flame embraced within 
the outer walls of what was an hour before the great 
Hotel Kremlin. The theory of incendiarism natu- 
rally occurs, as to the cause of the fire ; but guests 
and employees who have been interviewed have not, 
strange to say, a single fact at hand to corroborate 
it. An investigation will be made; but the case 
may be the curious, though not unprecedented one, 
of simultaneous accident or carelessness in several 
portions of the same buildins; at the same time. 

Some three hundred guests were in the house at 
the time, many of whom had retired for the night ; 
and it is both remarkable and unusual, under all 
the circumstances stated, that but a single one 
should have perished in the flames. The saving of 
the hotel-register and the ])ositive identification of 
all the guests but one, in connection with what is 
known as to that one, make it quite certain that the 
conflagration secured one victim. He was Colonel 
Ellard Gorman, Mayor of Montville, H. ^Y. He had 
been at the hotel for a week, and occupied rooms C- 
Dj second floor, consisting of parlor and bedroom. 


100 


A MIRACLE. 


ISTot more than ten minutes before the alarm of fire 
was given the bell for these rooms rang, and a boy 
went to answer it. He rapped at the parlor-door, 
and, receiving no answer, opened it and entered. 
The parlor was vacant. Passing through to the 
chamber, the boy found the gas turned low, and the 
Colonel lying on the bed with his coat off. His per- 
son had become quite familiar to the lad, and he 
was easily recognized. In answer to a question, the 
Colonel said quite distinctly that he wanted noth- 
ing; that he had not rung the bell, and did not 
wish to be disturbed, as he was sleepj^ The boy 
is quite positive that as he closed the parlor-door 
upon leaving, h3 heard it locked after him on the in- 
side. Keturning to the office, he was told that the 
bell of C-D had not rung ; it was that of A-B, on 
the same floor, which he then answered. 

Nothing has been seen of Mayor Gorman since 
the fire, and we deem it beyond doubt that his re- 
mains are in. its ruins. 


October 12, 1868. The date shows the lapse of 
two years and five ntonths since the time of the 
last entries in this book. All that has preceded this, 
although in narrative form, is really a record, be- 
gun, continued, now, I trust, completed, as to the as- 
sociations of the four persons who have figured in 
it. Commenced in despair, more as a means for re- 
lieving my overcharged feelings than from any other 
cause, it has been continued in time of doubt and 
uncertainty, and is now to be finished in the culmi- 
nation of such happiness as even a merciful God 
does not often permit to His suffering children ! 

I know that it is not wise to keep a diary — if it 
be kept truthfully. A man ought to be careful what 


A MIRACLE. 


101 


he sets down in his own hand as to the comings and 
goings of himself with others. Long after he is 
dead, his statement may rise up in accusation 
against himself or his children. Eealizing all this, 
still I choose to complete the record that I have 
thus far made. It has interested and occupied me 
in my darfet moments ; let it now have light from 
the gladness and the joy of the present situation, 
and, thus rounded-up, let it be put away where it 
may not be seen in my life or the lives of those who 
come after me. 

I sit here in the parlor adjoining my chamber, on 
the second floor of the great house lately owned by 
Ellard Gorman. The hour is almost midnight. The 
doctor has just taken his departure, reporting that 
all is well, and promising to return within four 
hours, after satisfying a pressing call. But there 
will hardly be need of me then,” he added. 
“ Mother and child are both asleep, and likely to 
continue so for some hours. The nurse has my in- 
structions.” 

But he was mistaken. Half an hour after he had 
departed I heard a sweet voice from the chamber. 
It finally called to me. I tiptoed softly to the half- 
open door ; the lamp was turned low, and the nurse 
dozed in her chair. Who had called me ? 

“Weldon!” 

The voice came from the pillow. Why, she was 
awake, pale and weak, but looking upon me with 
earnest and tender eyes. 

“ You must sleep, Georgia,” I remonstrated. “ The 
doctor said so. Your safety demands it. I have 


102 


A MODBH:^ MIRACLE. 


been staying in the outer parlor, to see that there 
was no disturbance. Sleep, now, dear — sleep, and 
please me.” ' 

“ In a moment, Weldon. There is something pre- 
vents my sleeping. I must tell you of it.” 

“Hot now, dear wife,” I protested. “Hot till 
you are stronger.” - 

“ I must tell you now, so that I may sleep and be 
in peace ! There has been a shadow upon me for 
these twelve months — ever since we were married. 
You have been kind ; you have blessed and renewed 
my weary life ; yet I have so often thought with a 
shudder of him — of his unhappiness after he wed me 
— of his dreadful end. Oh, Weldon! am I not to 
blame ?” 

“ Hush, Georgia ! If you knew how kindly, how 
considerately he spoke to me of you only a week be- 
fore he died ; hOw he pitied you for the sufferings 
you bore on account of that wretched mismating ; 
if you knew you would not accuse yourself.” 

“But a woman’s conscience is sharper than a 
man’s! In the humbling of my pride that came 
with that frightful catastrophe of his death I saw 
myself as I had never seen before. I must have 
been to blame. Perhaps more sweetness, more lov- 
ing kindness ” 

Her sad eyes eagerly sought my face for confir- 
mation ; she paused. I shook my head. 

“ God never joined you two,” I said. “ The min- 
ister said it, but there was never union of hearts. I 
knew you both better than others could know you ; 
and I say there was none possible.” 


A MIRACLE. 


103 


Her eyes were streaming with tears. 

‘‘I must make amends to him, Weldon,” she said. 
“Where he is — oh, God, grant him happiness! — he 
must see us and know Avhat we do. Let me show 
him that I am penitent for whatever wrong I did 
him.” 

“You accuse yourself unjustly. What would 
3^ou do ?” 

Smiling through her tears, she turned down the 
cover and showed me the little, shapeless, expression- 
less face of our two-hours-old boy. 

“ Let me call him Ellard Gorman,” she said. 

“Why, Georgia ” 

“Do not say Ho ! The burden will then fall from 
me. His sorrowful spirit will be appeased. Call it 
foolish, but don’t deny me.” 

I consented. She thanked me with a smile and 
drifted off to sleep. 

It is easy, with this told, to briefly set down what 
had gone before. 

On the day next after our receipt of the news of 
Mayor Gorman’s tragic death, a committee of three, 
appointed at a citizen’s meeting, went to Hew 
York, and two days after returned, with the poor 
remains of our dead in a splendid casket. The com- 
mittee were myself, Alvin Baker, and the president 
of one of the leading banks. I was satisfied, as the 
committee were, of the exact truth of what had been 
published ; but we were almost compelled by the 
authorities assembled at the undertaker’s establish- 
ment to be satisfied by personal view. The Coroner 
and his jury had just completed their sitting, and 


104 


A MIRACLE. 


their verdict had been returned according to the 
facts here stated. The whole casket-lid was re- 
moved, and the pitying shroud turned back from 
the hideous remains. Shuddering, with eyes half- 
averted, I gazed, as did the other two, not so much 
affected. Was this ghastly thing all that was left 
of the mortal part of brave, handsome Ellard Gor- 
man ? 

So they said ; and, controlling my horror, I rec- 
ognized the peculiar filling of the teeth, grinning 
hideously, now, and the old English “ G ” graven on 
the large onyx-stone of the ring that surrounded 
the bony little-finger of one of the hands. The 
others also recognized these marks. 

Tenderly, sorrowfully, we bore him back to 
Montville. It seemed as though the whole popula- 
tion was meeting us at that station. To the tolling 
of bells, the firing of minute-guns, the casket was 
followed by thousands to the court-house, where, 
guarded by the local militia, the remains lay in 
state three da3’'s. Clever *has Montville known such 
feeling. The press vied in eulogy ; a public meet- 
ing expressed the popular grief; the funeral Avas 
attended by a vast concourse of civic societies, 
several military companies Avere not Avanting, and 
the eloquent and touching discourse preached over 
the remains Avas heard by many thousands in the 
packed square Avhere the funeral ceremonies were 
held, and Avas Avidely published by the press of the 
State. 

Should I state the whole truth, it Avould have to 
be said that the last sods Avere hardly fitted upon 


A MOhmn MIRACLE!. 


105 


the grave-mound of the deceased before the popular 
question became this : Who is now best eligible as a 
candidate for Congress ? 

So he passed away. Men had wagged their heads 
wisely and said to one another, ‘‘ Ah, his place can- 
not be filled !” But his death, like the death of the 
most eminent, resembled the casting of a stone 
into a pool. There is a slight disturbance ; circles 
spring out, widen, and are lost ; in a moment the 
pool is as placid as before. 

In due time, as has been seen, I married his 
widow, and practically succeeded to the control of 
his great wealth. Moreover, I was elected to suc- 
ceed him as Mayor. 

Hot only willingly, upon reading her late hus- 
band’s last letter, but eagerly, did Georgia consent 
to the bestowal of fifty thousand dollars upon my 
cousin Julia. I promptly wrote to her, carefully 
and tenderly stating everything, not omitting Gor- 
man’s last message, and Georgia added a few lines. 
I begged Julia to accept the money, stating that it 
should be sent to her in any form she desired, and 
urging her to return to Montville, now that the rea- 
son for her exile was removed. I addressed my let- 
ter to Wycaseo ; her answer came from elsewhere, 
with an illegible post-mark. It was a brief, stern 
reply — merely the words “ JSTo ; never !” — written at 
the foot of the letter, and the letter reinclosed in 
another envelope. Secluded somewhere, her high 
sense of honor still prevails. 

And here my record ends. In the boundless love 
of my dear wife, watching the growth of my darling 


106 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


boy, rich, honored, prosperous — why should I not be 
happy ? I am ; yet often I think sadly of him who 
failed so miserably in reaching this blissful height, 
and whose life went out in such physical and mental 
agony. 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


107 


II. 

NARRATIVE OF ELLARD GORMAN. 

CHAPTEK 1. 

Satan’s whispekings. 

I T TAKES a man an ordinary life-time to get 
well acquainted with himself ! 

My experience with myself in the spring of 1866 
convinced me that it is much easier for an honorable 
man to resolve to be a fraud and a cheat than it is 
for him to carry out that bad resolution. 

I make no apology for the fact that the relations 
between my wife and myself grew cold — more than 
cold — after marriage. It simply could not be 
helped. I had committed the one mistake in life 
that cannot be corrected. It was one of the thou- 
sands of marriages that never should have been 
made. Love was impossible ; there was no remedy 
but divorce, and that I would not have. I had a 
high position in society, in business, in politics, to 
preserve ; hence I carefully instructed my wife as to 
our mutual duty in keeping up appearances. 

I was perfectly capable of living and acting a lie 
in these odious bonds so long as my heart was not 
placed elsewhere — as I supposed that it never would 


108 


A MODBBJV MIRACLE. 


be. But the episode of Julia Bement shook me as 
an earthquake heaves the surface of the ^lobe. 
There was a transformation of my moral nature. I 
became capable of almost anything to win her. For 
that time her steady refusal saved me from m3^self. 
She disappeared ; for that time my honor was saved. 

But though I strongly held it in check, m v })as- 
sion burned and glowed within me. The few weeks 
that followed were weeks of soul-torture such as men 
have suffered — but, I think, not many. Behind the 
cool and smiling aspect that Montville continued to 
see, the demon was raging. My occupations became 
hateful, my marital bonds intolerable, my brilliant 
prospects in life, even my wealth, but trivial. Such 
torment as I endured must needs have quickly been 
ended ; it could end only by suicide or flight. De- 
graded as my moral nature was becoming, I never 
for a moment contemplated the former ; whatever I 
have been, thank God I have no cowardice in me ! I 
deliberately resolved that I would leave Montville 
and Georgia, once and forever. I would sacrifice 
all the possessions that were mine, of which my 
Avealth, great as it was, possibly was not the great- 
est. I would go to Julia Bement — I Avould, if neces- 
sary, search the Avhole West till I found her — and I 
would sa}^ to her, See, now, what I have done for 
you ! I have throAvn it all away for you and for 
your love. Kefuse thaDlove any longer and you 
make me a vagabond,, a desperado, perchance — for 
some of the stern, lawless spirit that battles and 
Avounds instilled into me slumbers yet in my breast. 
Have I not now convinced you of my sincerity, of 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


109 


the depth of my regard for you, when I have actu- 
ally sacrificed everything for you, as I not long ago 
declared that I was eager to do ? Then let us turn 
our backs to the dreary past, and somewhere — as far 
off as you please ; I care not where — find compensa- 
tion for what we have suffered.’’ Thus I resolved I 
would speak to her ; and now she must consent ! 
She had shown me her heart — “ she will not deny 
me now,” I said. 

AV ith this determination secretly made, now ap- 
peared what may be thought a strange phase of my 
character. Being resolved upon this course — being 
determined, as might be thought, to undo myself 
forever — it may be asked, “ Why hesitate and scheme 
about it ? AVhy not take an abrupt flight and enter 
at once upon the new existence that you have pro- 
posed ?” 

Ah, the question suggests the reflection with 
which this chapter began. It is easier to resolve to 
be a villain than to be one. Fortune might be 
abandoned with indifference ; to leave Georgia and 
ilever look upon her face again would, I thought, be 
the greatest benefit that I could confer upon her ; 
but my good name, my standing in the community, 
my military and civic honors — could I be willing to 
blast them all at a breath, if there were a way to 
save them ? 

No ; this fair fabric I was proud of ; it had been 
raised with great toil and pains ; I would leave it as 
a fitting monument to myself when I should be gone. 
In the story of Montville, to be- told by some future 
historian and rehearsed on great anniversary occa- 


110 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


sions, the name of Ellard Gorman, its first Mayor, 
should be mentioned with praise and respect, and 
his brief but brilliant career should be stated with 
applause. I was acting deliberately now, as I was 
not on the first access of my passion for Julia. 

^ What, then, was my alternative ? In what way 
should I sunder my ties here, and drop forever out 
of the life of this city ? 

I gave deep and careful thought to this question, 
and decided that there was but one certain and safe 
way. My attention had frequently been turned to 
the great increase of “ strange and mysterious dis- 
appearances ” during and after the war. The news- 
papers were continually called upon to repeat the 
story of some countryman of wealth and high 
respectability journeying on some legitimate errand 
to the metropolis and there disappearing — as com- 
pletely as though the earth had yawned and swal- 
lowed him. Absolutely nothing was ever heard of 
him thereafter, although ‘Goul play” was always 
‘‘ suspected,” and the police were invariably notified. 
At my leisure I had made a kind of study of this 
class of minor news, feeling, I presume, a certain 
undeveloped personal interest in the staple of such 
items. I was interested enough to scissor them out 
and lay them away, and by so doing I discovered 
that in a single year no less than twenty-three such 
cases were reported in one of the leading metropoli- 
tan dailies. I carefully abstained from talking with 
anybody on the subject ; but my own reflections 
and my knowledge of the great city made me certain 
that in nine out of ten of these strange cases there 


A MODMN Miracle. 


Ill 


must be some other explanation beside murder or 
suicide ; because even in thronged and hurrying 
jSTew York, where thousands of criminal harpies 
press upon the steps of the ignorant and the un- 
wary — even there, men are not commonly done 
away with so thoroughly that no vestige of them is 
ever found. Yet, as I had observed by frequent com- 
ment made in my hearing upon such items of news, 
the invariable explanation made by the people was 
that these unfortunates had been decoyed into secret 
haunts of crime, murdered for their money, and 
their bodies skillfully hidden. The death of the 
victim was always assumed, as a matter of 
course. 

Having' determined to leave Montville forever, 
these news-items and the popular explanation of 
them pointed me to my way. Death would leave 
jny good name and fame bright ; death in some 
other way than suicide. I resolved to go to Hew 
York — and to die there ! 

It will thus be seen that my conduct toward Wel- 
don Hunt during my last two hours in Montville 
was simply a tissue of mixed hypocrisy and deceit. 
Yet it had another element, which the reader has al- 
ready perceived. That man was really and truly 
my friend. I liked him well ; indeed I had really 
admired him for his generous spirit toward me after 
his loss of Georgia, which the poor fellow took 
most deeply to heart. How that my way was de- 
termined upon, I saw no objection in letting him 
know how discordant Georgia and I had really lived 
as man and wife, and that she had always loved 


112 


A MODmJ^ lilRACLW. 


him. It would make Ms way easier and more cer- 
tain after my disap my death, I should say. 

Mr. Hunt came to my house that morning by ap- 
pointment. I had much to say to him ; but when he 
appeared, I thought it policy to pretend to forget 
that I had requested an interview, and the subject 
upon which I had desired to speak to him. As for 
my errand — the contracting for sewer-pipe — almost 
anybody could have done it as well as I. Some fair 
pretext I must find to justify a trip to Hew York ; 
and this seemed a sufficient one. 

In further proof of my assertion that it is hard 
for a man to deliberately devote himself to wrong- 
doing without being hurried into it by a sudden ex- 
cess of passion or some “ lion-like temptation ” un- 
expectedly springing upon him, I may state that 
my bad resolution was severely shaken that morn- 
ing when I came to bid good-by to Georgia. In 
that moment all the glamour of our days of court- 
ship came back to me, and her later sufferings were 
remembered. I took her hand and offered to kiss 
her. Had she exhibited any tenderness toward me 
then, it may be that I would have been overcome ; 
the suggestions of the devil might have been cast 
out and a new affection planted in our hearts. I do 
not assert it ; yet such a thing was possible with me. 
But she refused my kiss ; she turned from me al- 
most with loathing. From that instant I was as 
steel. I went right on, skillfully covering my tracks, 
resolved that they should never point toward Mont- 
ville again. 

The role of the hypocrite was a new and most 


A Monmj^ MIRACLE. 


113 


disgusting one for me ; but I succeeded well with it 
in my long interview with Hunt. For one moment 
I did see suspicion in his eyes ; his face showed that 
he believed my talk preluded flight. How admira- 
bly I Sid lie to him ! How I talked of duty, and 
bravery in standing up under the ills of life, bear- 
ing our burdens manfully, even to the grave, and all 
that rot ! I to talk thus, when I was coolly medi- 
tating all that he faintly suspected me of — and 
worse ! I thoroughly imposed upon him ; but he 
will never know how I writhed inwardly at the lie, 
and how I hated myself for it. Still, much of my 
emotion was genuine ; no need of counterfeit in 
talking of those two women ! 

He believed me when I repudiated the idea of ab- 
sconding. The suggestion must have seemed absurd 
to him when he came to think it over ! A vague 
hint that I would probably die first nicely laid the 
foundation for my subsequent letter to him from 
Hew York. For that purpose, also, the disclosure 
about Julia became necessary. 

i had no fear that either Georgia or Hunt would 
ever betray the wretched secret of domestic misery 
at Gorman place, nor the episode of Julia Bement. 
There would be no object for them to do so ; their 
own happiness in the future would require that these 
things remain buried. 

My letter from Hew York, written the day before 
the news of my death reached Montville, was in- 
tended to strongly emphasize the idea of a presenti- 
ment. A shrewd stroke of business also entered into 
it. If I could induce Georgia to send to Julia fifty 


114 


A MOD BUN %nRAOLB. 


thousand dollars, after my decease, upon the plea of 
simple justice to a noble woman who had abandoned 
her situation and departed from Montville for my 
honor, as well as her own — if I could by a strong- 
appeal cause this to be done, I would find the'^money 
when I found Julia ! 

As it was, I was compelled to leave home but 
slimly provided. The money that I happened to 
have in my safe that day — about five hundred dol- 
lars — I transferred to my pocket-book. I had large 
balances in the banks, and stock-certificates and 
bonds of great value deposited ; but I dared not dis- 
turb either. I knew something of the skill and per- 
sistence of the American detective, and how swiftly, 
when suspicion has been strongly aroused, he will 
go on from discovery to discovery. I would not 
leave a clew behind that would lead men to suspect 
that I had not died an actual and hona fide death. 
I had to sacrifice my property to that end. , 

These were the circumstances under which I Avent 
to h4ew York in May, 1866. Men usually go forth 
to premeditated or compulsory death with fear and 
trembling. I, debased in mind as I had become, 
journeyed to that last goal Avith outward composure 
and inward joy. 


A MIRACLE, 


115 


CHAPTEK II. 


COLONEL GARBU^r OF ALABAMA. 

I registered at the Kremlin, on the 



V V same evening, I was at once recognized and 
cordially greeted by the head clerk. He may have 
remembered me, as I had often been a guest at this 
house during the past three years ; but I presume he 
had the accomplished hotel clerk’s trick of following 
the registering-pen and reading upside-down the 
name of the new arrival. 

“ I shall stay a week,” I explained, and I very 
much want my usual quarters — Kooms C-D, second 
floor. I am so used to them that I never feel at 
home without them. How is it ?” 

You are fortunate, as usual, Colonel Gorman;” 
and now, from his use of the title, I knew that he 
did really know me. Those rooms have but just 
been vacated by Senator Blank, who has been hold- 
ing a continual reception there for the last few days. 
I am glad to be able to let you have them. Your 
baggage will be sent up immediately.” 

Following the bell-boy who was sent to open the 
rooms for me, I went up, looked about the familiar 
and elegantly-furnished apartments with as much 
satisfaction as I was able to derive from anything 
not directly connected with the great scheme that 
was laboring in my mind, and then devoted ten 


116 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


minutes to removing the dust of the journey, re- 
freshing myself with water, assuming clean linen, 
and making myself generally presentable. Standing 
before the tall mirror and viewing my face as I 
brushed my hair, I reflected — nay, I am not sure 
that I did not say it — Well, Ellard Gorman, you 
certainly don’t look like a sccundrel. Do you mean 
to be one 

Conscience was protesting and objecting ; I was 
trying to silence the monitor with a certain fallacy 
that seemed unanswerable to me. “I am injuring 
nobody but myself,” was my answer. I am mak- 
ing great sacrifices. It will be best for all con- 
cerned that it should be as I design. All the deceit 
that it involves will be richly compensated by the 
good that is done.” And then came the severe 
questions: ‘^Oh, is it right f Would you approve 
it in another ? Are you satisfied with yourself ?” 

The man who attempts to argue with his com 
science will get himself silenced after a very short 
debate. Upon this rejoinder I went out and slammed 
the door, and descended to supper. 

Later in the evening I walked and smoked in the 
well-lighted lobby, meeting no acquaintance among 
the well-dressed crowd of sitters and perambulators, 
but observing with interest the well-conducted and 
chatty throng. Feeling inclined to a walk on Broad- 
way, I accosted the clerk on two subjects that were 
active in my thoughts. 

^^It is my custom,” I said, “when away from 
home, to leave at the hotel office an address that a 
telegram may be sent to, in case of accident,” 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


117 


I wrote upon the back of my card ‘‘Weldon 
Hunt, Montville, H. Y.,” and handed it to him. 

“An excellent precaution,” he observed, as he 
examined the card. I thus insured the dispatching 
of prompt intelligence of my death to my home. 

“ Having frequently occupied C-D before,” I con- 
tinued, “I am familiar with the privileges that 
attach to them. I would like the little key.” 

He smiled, and handed me out a small brass key 
which had often been in my pocket before. Then I 
started upon my walk. 

There shall be no mystery as to the incident of 
the small key at the clerk’s counter. 

The Kremlin was a favorite resort of out-of-town 
politicians and statesmen. It had often happened, 
in those brisk times of politics, that both rows of 
parlors and chambers on the second floor, along the 
Broadway front and on the side-street, were fully 
occupied by gentlemen of this class. For their ac- 
commodation, early in the years of the war, a pri- 
vate entrance had been constructed on the side- 
street, communicating with a narrow stairway 
emerging by a door into the side-corridor of the 
second floor. It was an extremely desirable ar- 
rangement for the public men who patronized this 
hotel, and the secret seemed to have been well kept. 
Keporters lying in wait at the front entrance and in 
the lobby for distinguished men were thus foiled of 
their prey. Persons whom Governors, Senators, 
Kepresentatives, and even Mayors wished to see, 
without notice being taken of their introduction, 
were admitted to this little side-door and taken up 


118 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


the private stairs. It was an excellent arrangement, 
with which I was well acquainted, and the benefits 
of which I had often had. 

Upon this visit I asked for the little key, merely 
because I knew of its existence and its use. I had 
no plan in mind connected with it ; indeed, I had 
postponed until the morrow all thoughts as to how 
my death should be accomplished. I asked for and 
obtained the key only because I was entitled to it, 
with no formulated design of using it for my pres- 
ent purpose. 

Once on the Broadway sidewalk, I stepped out 
briskly, and walked along with the great procession 
that flowed down, glancing with placid curiosity at 
the equally numerous one that passed on the inner 
side, going up. I was, strange as it may appear, ex- 
hilarated in spirit ; the sights and the so*unds of the 
great thoroughfare gave me keen enjoyment, al- 
though I was quite familiar Avith J:hem. Hoav and 
by what means my plan Avas to be carried out I had 
not seriously thought of ; all that I had postponed 
to the morroAV, resolving to utterly free myself from 
care till then. I had endeavored to throw off all 
mental disturbance on account of the great decep- 
tion I Avas about to practice upon thousands of peo- 
ple, and already I Avas beginning to feel practically 
severed from all the ties that had bound me to 
Montville. 

Turning on Chambers Street, I Avalked some dis 
tance easterly, having in my mind merely that I 
Avould go on for perhaps tAvo hours, taking my way 
at hap-hazard, returning to the Kremlin by some 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


110 


roundabout route, and particularly desiring to ex- 
tend my ramble far enough to get rid of my mild 
excitement, and to tire myself so that I should be 
insured a sound sleep. 

The crowd of passers was thinner here, and as I 
proceeded my eye was caught by the advancing fig- 
ure of a tall, erect man. The casual glance that I 
gave him as we met under the gaslight produced the 
impression that he was rather a distinguished-looking 
person. His eye met mine, and he brought up his 
hand in a military salute. I responded in the same 
way, from habit, and the incident would doubtless 
have slipped from my thoughts in a moment but 
for what followed. I had not advanced ten yards 
when a voice spoke close to my elbow : 

“ I beg your pardon, Colonel, but as you passed 
me just now your face looked very familiar. Are 
you not — is it possible that I have the honor of ad- 
dressing Colpnel Jenkins, late of the — ah, yes, of the 
Twenty-First Kegiment of Hew York Volunteer 
Artillery 

We were standing at the outer edge of the walk, 
away from the press, and I looked him all over be- 
fore I answered. My “ distinguished-looking per- 
sonage,” seen closer and examined critically, was re- 
solved into a seedy and impudent vagabond, with 
some faint remains of a former far-away respect- 
ability lingering about him. The velveteen coat 
that he wore tightly buttoned at the throat and 
across the chest, probably to conceal deficiencies of 
linen, was frayed at the edges and faded; boots, 
trousers and hat had each seen much better days. 


120 


A MODBUS MIRACLE. 


Still, his shabby clothes were carefully brushed ; 
even his broken foot-wear had a good polish ; his 
hands were cased in a pair of old gloves, and he 
swung a little rattan-cane. 'A clean white handker- 
chief protruding from the breast of his coat some- 
what relieved the prevailing seediness of his attire. 
At another time I would not have noticed him at 
all, or would have repulsed his advances. In my 
frame of mind that night I felt more like humoring 
the fellow. It was easy to see that some form of 
beggary was concealed under this shabby-genteel 
exterior and polite address ; but I did not anticipate 
the shape it was to take — nor really care what it 
might be. 

‘‘JSTo,” I replied, ‘‘you are mistaken. I am not 
Colonel Jenkins; and since there never was any 
such organization as the Twenty-First Hew York 
Artillery, I could not have been of it.” 

He was not in the least abashe^. 

“Well, well ; I beg your pardon again,” he said. 
“We are all subject to mistakes, you know ; even 
Homer nods and Shakespeare repeats. ‘ To err is 
human; to forgive, divine.’ Error is common to 
poor human nature ; would that I, even I, had never 
committed a greater one than to mistake you for 
the actual colonel of an impossible regiment. Yet, 
by your bearing, your militar^^ air, and the general 
aspect of your presence, I think I shall not mistake 
again in saying that you have been a soldier. Is it 
not so ?” 

The easy impudence of the fellow amused, while 
his talk really interested me. Though stilted, it was 


A JIOjDJSBJV miracle. 


121 


correct and grammatical, and liis language was full 
of quotations and references such as only an edu- 
cated man could use. His voice betrayed the alco- 
holic hoarseness, but was often quite musical. See- 
ing him and hearing him for three minutes showed 
me that here was an unusual character, who • doubt- 
less had seen fortunes and vicissitudes that it might 
be interesting to hear about. The hour was early, 
I was quite in the mood for such an adventure, and 
the man was perfectly sober. I determined to 
humor him. 

“Yes, I was in the war,” was my reply. 

“ I knew it, sir — I knew it ! Upon the prevailing 
side ?” 

“ I was colonel of a Union regiment.” 

“ Then, sir, the happiest man in this metropolis 
greets you to-night ! I am Colonel Garbutt of Ala- 
bama! I fought under the Stars and Bars from 
Manassas to Appomattox, and am now proud and 
happy that this glorious land has one name, one 
nationality, one flag, one destiny ! Sir, let us shake 
hands across the bloody chasm !” 

I complied, feeling more decidedly amused at his 
gasconade. ' 

“Your pardon again. Colonel; but what did 1 
understand your name to be ?” 

“ As I did not mention it, I hardly think you un- 
derstood anything about it.” 

He was not at all set back by this rebuff. His 
eyes had a droll expression, and he nodded his head 
to show that he knew that my reticence on that 
point was designed. 


122 


A MODERI^ MIRACLE. 


Two policemen had passed us while this colloquy 
was going on, and from the way that their glances 
lingered on my distinguished companion I saw that 
he was well known to them at least. I was in dan- 
ger of becoming conspicuous through my company. 

don’t wish to stop on the street talking,” I 
said; “but if you choose to walk my way, very 
well.” 

“ Why, with great pleasure. Colonel,” he briskly 
responded. 

My invitation encouraged him to offer to take my 
arm, which familiarity I promptly repelled. 

“Do not presume too much on short acquaint- 
ance, Colonel Garbutt of Alabama,” I remarked, 
with good-humored plainness. “If you have any- 
thing in particular* to say to me that you think I 
would be interested to hear, just keep on talking as 
we go on, and I will listen.” 

“ Ah, brave sir, you’re a man after my own heart ! 
I think I can interest you ; I can tell you of my 
necessities, of one pressing necessity in particular ; 
and what could interest a large-hearted citizen of 
the world like yourself more than the woes of the 
unfortunate? For what says Yirgil: ‘Having been 
miserable myself, I learn to pity the misfortunes of 
the wretched,’ or words to that effect. May I not 
assume, sir, that your own couch has not always 
been spread with roses? And you have been a 
soldier. Ah, what sings our own gentle poet ! 

The bravest are the tenderest, 

The loving- are the daring. 

Let me, then, make a practical application. You 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


123 


look upon a victim of circumstances, sir ; of circum- 
stances so hard, that he who addresses you has not 
tasted food this day. Colonel, there is a place on 
Chatham Square, well known to me, where for the 
small sum of twenty-five cents I could procure a full 
meal, were it not for those same disgusting circum- 
stances. You understand me; why should one 
gentleman be offensively explicit with another 
The trifling nature of his appeal, following the 
turgid and flowery preface, rather inclined me to 
laugh ; but as I looked at him I was startled to see 
ravenous hunger appealing to me from his eyes. 

“ I shall be happy to supply such a need,’’ I hast- 
ened to say. Take me to the place, and I’ll cheer- 
fully order your dinner, and pay for it.” 

“ Colonel, you’re kind, too kind ! I can’t find it in 
my heart to put you to all that trouble. The 
restaurants of Chatham Square are hardly the cor- 
rect thing for you., eminently satisfactory as they 
appear to me. Give me a quarter — possibly your 
kindness might make it a half — and I’ll remember 
yQU in my prayers for many a night.” 

See here. Colonel Garbutt of Alabama !” was 
my very plain rephq “ I am willing to satisfy your 
hunger ; but as for giving you money to get drunk 
on, I must decline. The locality you name is pretty 
well known to me ; I will risk myself with you in 
one of its eating-houses for one evening. Come 
along, and show me the place.” 

Not the slightest offense did he take at that or 
any other of my language. We walked on, his 
tongue running glibly. 


124 


A MODERS MIRACLE. 


Behold us two seated on opposite sides of a small 
table in the corner of a low-ceilinged and not over- 
clean resort upon one side of classic Chatham Square. 
Similar tables are located thickly about the dingy 
and poorly-lighted apartment, at which various 
flashily-attired youths, Jews, sailors, and an occa- 
sional countryman, are refreshing themselves with 
food and drink. At a bar-counter on one side two 
men with their coats off are laboring hard to supply 
the demand for drinkables ; waiters circulate among 
the tables ; a haze of cigar-smoke hangs overhead ; 
there is a combination of smells about the place not 
altogether pleasant. A murmur of talk, laughter, 
and an occasional oath sometimes rises above the 
minor key ; and at intervals the music of two stri- 
dent violins breaks forth from a slightly-raised plat- 
form at another side of the roorn, where two alleged 
musicians industriously saw awa}^ at the strings, as 
if to earn their hire by main strength. Occasionally 
an overdressed and much-rouged young woman ap- 
pears on the platform and sings with great force and 
expression, but less melody, such songs as Dearest 
Love, do You Kemember?” “When Sherman 
Marched Down to the Sea,^’ and^ “We Parted by the 
Kiver-Bank.” 

Having ordered a full supply of provender for my 
guest, bidding the waiter not to limit him to the 
usual twenty-five-cent allowance, I sat and really en- 
joyed the spectacle of the poor fellow satisfying his 
hunger. I enjoyed it, and yet shuddered at first in 
watching him, for there is something painfully like 
the ferocity of a wild beast in the actions of a half- 


A MODmJV' MIRACLE, 


125 


starved man, excited by the smell and the sight of 
food. He ate ravenously, and surprised me by the 
quantity that he consumed before he admitted him- 
self satisfied. He was not backward in hinting that 
liquor would be agreeable ; but I overruled him and 
called for coffee, of which he swallowed three large 
cups, black and strong. 

Most men become reasonably familiar with their 
own personal appearance, through the daily opera- 
tions of the toilet ; and as much as a man may, I 
knew myself, outwardly. Watching this man as he 
ate, for his babbling tongue was silenced for the 
time by the operation, I made a small discovery that 
rather disquieted me. 

His face strongly resembled my own ! 

It was, of course, merely an accidental likeness ; 
but the fact at first annoyed me. He was at least 
fifteen years older than I, and dissipation, possibly 
want and care, had hollowed his eyes, wrinkled his 
cheeks, and dashed his brown hair with gray ; but 
the shape of head and' face, the contour of features, 
even an occasional expression, I recognized as my 
own. The resemblance was much increased by the 
long, pointed mustache and imperial, a la the then 
reigning Emperor of the French, which each of us 
wore. 

All this might not have occurred to me but for 
the opportunity he was furnishing for close inspec- 
tion ; and presently I observed another coincidence 
of appearance that was curious, at least. In youth, 
my own teeth, not naturally of the best, had been 
neglected, and the whole front row of the upper 


126 


A MODBBN MIRACLE. 


jaw was saved only by very skillful dentistry and a 
lavish use of gold-filling, which was conspicuous 
whenever I laughed or smiled. I was, of course, 
very familiar with this part of my physiognomy ; 
and as I continued to look across the table I saw 
that the man had the same peculiarity, appearing 
quite as plainly as it did in my own visage. There 
was the same visible filling in the same teeth. 

With a sigh of satisfaction he at last laid down 
knife and fork, and began an effusive tribute to my 
generous hospitality, as he phrased it. I stopped 
him for the moment with a cigar, and lit one my- 
self ; but a casual remark that I made about one of 
the war-songs that had been sung while he ate 
started him off with a magniloquent review of his 
own military experience, which he consumed a good 
fifteen minutes in outlining. I had supposed that I 
had accurately taken the fellow’s measure by this 
time, and could not be surprised at anything he 
might say ; but the cool effrontery with which he de- 
scribed the most impossible events in battles where 
I had myself borne some small part,, his extrava- 
gance in telling of his many wounds and desperate 
deeds of valor, and the easy familiarity of his fre- 
quently-spoken That was the day when General 
Lee said to me” — ‘‘Just then Beauregard asked, 
‘Where’s Garbutt?”’ — all this made. me see that I 
had fallen in with the most accomplished liar I had 
ever met. He was continuing in this strain, his 
voice rising above the rasping of the fiddles and 
the high notes of the vocalist as she poured out a 
heart-rending ditty, when I silenced him. 


A miracle. 


127 


“ That will do, Colonel Gar butt of Alabama. You 
have no more right to that name than has that 
screeching girl over there. It is an insult and an 
offense to me that j-ou presume to parody the 
bravery and self-devotion of the people of the 
South with all this bombastic false pretense. It’s 
lucky for you that you have eaten at the same table 
with me ; that is all that prevents my handing you 
over to the police. You are a first-class fraud, sir !” 

I spoke with a severity that was assumed for the 
occasion ; and the adventurer did not misunderstand 
me ifi the least. He half-closed one eye, and drew 
down one corner of his mouth in assumed humility, 
as he replied : 

“ How, don’t be har^l on me. Colonel ! A gentle- 
man is driven to do many things that his conscience 
would not approve here in this roaring Babel of 
Hew York. This present ‘racket’ that you hafe 
detected me in (pardon my use of the slang) is well- 
calculated to work upon the sympathies of the Union 
soldier who is not so sharp and so experienced as 
yourself. It stands me well, sometimes. But, as 
‘ one, man in his time plays many parts,’ so also do I. 
The role of the one-legged sailor is not a bad one ; I 
am quite perfect in that. In favorable localities, 
when the time serves, you might see me as a patri- 
archal doctor ; I sell marvelous cures for all known 
diseases, advertising the business with such strength 
of lung and felicity of talk and anecdote as some- 
times bring me a harvest. Indeed, it would take 
time barely to enumerate the different lines of busi- 
ness that I am capable of. Just now, as you see, 


128 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


my fortunes are at a low ebb. The police are my 
enemies ; they seem to have a deep-rooted prejudice 
to the exercise of honest industr}^” 

‘‘ I presume you are acquainted with the geogra- 
phy of Blackwell’s Island ?” I queried, taking him at 
his humor. 

“ Certainly — certainly ! And I haven’t the slight- 
est resentment now against the mistaken function- 
ary who insisted on my taking a trip up there. 
I tried hard to convince him that I was a gentle- 
man and only slightly exhilarated, but ’twas no 
use.” 

I looked at my watch ; the hour was but a few 
minutes past nine. Things in the appearance and 
talk of this vagabond Crichton were continually 
coming out that startled me. When I noticed a 
certain resemblance in our faces, conscience faintly 
suggested to me, ‘‘Considering the way, on which 
you have now entered, will you not look like him, be 
like him, ten years hence What he had just said 
about disguises recalled my thoughts to my yet un- 
formed plan of disappearance, and it instantly struck 
me that this fellow’s cunning, skill and experience 
might be of the greatest use tojne. To that end I 
proceeded to ascertain all I could about him. 

“ Although,” I said, “ it is none of your business 
what my name is, I want to know yours. I have a 
proposition to make that will benefit you.” 

“ Agreed. My own name I have had little use 
for of late years, but it’s mine, just the same. It is 
Lawrence Gal ton. You may call me Larry, for 
shortj as the boys used to at school.” 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


129 


From a handful of coins in my pocket I selected a 
five dollar gold-piece and held it up to him. He 
looked at it wolfishly. 

“ I propose to give you that,” I said. If I do, 
will you promise not to get drunk on it 

I swear it ! Have I not had enough of putting 
an enemy in my mouth to steal away my brains ? 
Do you think I would dishonor ” 

“ Come, come, Larry, no mock-heroics. I merely 
want you to keep reasonably sober for a week, 
which you can surely do, if you try. Do you know 
anything about making up the human face in a dis- 
guise, as well as the person ?” 

I know all about it. Why, I am a professional 
actor. Get me the materials, and I’ll fix you out so 
in half an hour that your bosom friends wouldn’t 
know you.” 

^‘Y6rygood. Hext Tuesday night, say at eight 
o’clock, I want you to be at the private entrance of 
the Kremlin, where I am stopping. But ” 

I bethought myself that he could not know the 
exact place, and was about to mention the street 
and, tell him to be. there, not far from the Broad- 
way corner, at the time named, when he answered 
promptly : 

“ I know the spot. I’ll be on hand.” 

“ How did you learn about that entrance ?” 

He chuckled as he replied : 

‘‘Hot long ago I met a good-natured-looking 
gentleman, and worked one of my sympathy rackets 
on him. He felt in his pocket, and found no small 
money. ‘ Come to the Kremlin at seven,’ he said, 


130 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


‘ and I’ll give you a dollar.’ I went up there, and 
in at that hour, and was promptly kicked out. 
Loafing in the street, I saw my gentleman come 
along with another. I got something from each of 
them, and observed them enter by a little side-door. 
Since then I have .seen others go in that way. 
You’ll find me at the right spot.” 

I handed him the coin, settled the score, and left 
the place, followed by Lawrence Gallon. 

“Until we reach Broadway,” I said, “you may 
walk along with me. Are you willing to tell me all 
about yourself?” 

“ ^ The proper study of mankind is man,’ Colonel, 
and I don’t know of one of the species more 
interesting to me than — your humble servant.” 

“Well, go on and tell me all about yourself. The 
information may help me to make up my mind as to 
just what service I want of you.” 

“Business is business. Colonel. You are calling 
upon me to unveil the harrowing past. I’ll do it — 
for a consideration. You have treated me gener- 
ously ; but, I put it to you : shpuld a man of refine- 
ment and sensibility, such as I, expose the errors and 
follies of his life to the gaze of curiosity — except for 
a consideration ?” 

The shrewd rascal saw that I was really desirous 
of hearing his story and proposed to make the most 
of his opportunity. I gave him another five dollars ; 
and while we walked the streets I listened to his 
candid narrative of degraded honor and lost man- 
hood. 

The briefest outline of what he told me vrill suffice 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


131 


for my present purpose ; there is no need of encum- 
bering my narrative with the details of the sorrow- 
ful story. He was the only son of a Connecticut 
clergyman, and in boyhood and youth was the 
spoiled darling of his doting mother. His father 
Avas stern and unbending, both in theology and fam- 
ily discipline, and it was clear that the first errors 
that had turned his promising life astray were not 
his own. Between the harshness of one parent and 
the Aveak indulgence of the other, his plastic mind 
became variable. A fatal vacillation Avas stamped 
upon it Avhich he never outgreAV. 

His course at college Avas interrupted by frequent 
suspensions and other forms of discipline, resulting 
from the habit that became the bane of his life. 
Hear the time Avhen he Avould haA^e graduated Avith 
high . honor, some unusually flagrant conduct on a 
drunken frolic caused his expulsion. His father, 
smarting from the disgrace, forbade him the house, 
and never spoke to him again ; his mother clung to 
him, Avrote him comforting letters, and sent him 
money. 

That he had talents of a high order his conversa- 
tion sufficiently proA^ed to me. He needed nothing 
but balance and industry. He went to Boston, 
studied for the bar, was admitted, and made a bril- 
liant opening. For a few months all Avent Avell ; he 
was acquiring practice and earning money ; and then 
the demon of drink again overpowered him. After 
a long debauch he came to his senses at sea. He 
had actually shipped before the mast on a China 


132 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


For two years he led the dog’s life of a common 
seaman. On his discharge in Boston he learned that 
his parents were both dead, and that he was entitled 
to their small property. He lost no time in con- 
verting it into money and in entering upon a spree 
that almost killed him. He awoke to consciousness 
that time in a hospital, weak and penniless. 

The same dreadful shadow clouded him in every- 
thing that he undertook. He had wonderful and 
versatile capacity for intellectual work ; he became 
by turns an actor, a reporter, a lecturer on scientific 
subjects, a political speaker. In each of these lines 
he had more than excelled; he had given bright 
promise of high success ; but always his fatal appe- 
tite dragged him down. He amazed me by the as- 
surance that, after he had given up all hope of 
reformation, he had gone to the West as an itiner- 
ant preacher, holding forth to great crowds out-of- 
doors, and becoming widely known as an eloquent 
exhorter. A remark that he added showed the self- 
confidence as well as the recklessness of the man. 

‘‘ Few preachers, I fancy, ever drew the tears that 
I have from the people, in the same time. You 
doubt that ? Colonel, you keep me sober for a week, 
and in ten minutes I’ll have any congregation cry- 
ing that you may set me before.” 

His habits, of course, brought him into disgrace 
and new downfall upon this strange mission ; and 
then he had drifted to Hew York and joined the 
great army of its cheats, impostors and shady folks 
who live by their wits. He had already sufficiently 
described to me his way of life here. 


A MIRACLE. 


133 


Our walk was long-extended before he finished 
his story, and I had become tired enough, in mind 
and body, to warrant the hope of sleep. I stopped 
near Broadway and tried to dismiss him. 

“That will do, Larry. Come round Tuesday 
night, where I told you. Don’t mention this to 
any one. Good-night. Keep straight.” 

“ Colonel — just a minute.” 

I turned back harshly. 

“ What’s the matter ‘i You want more money, I 
suppose.” 

“Ko, sir; I don’t. It’s unkind in you to say 
that !” 

I was never to have done with surprise at the fel- 
low. There was actually an unsimulated tone of 
honest indignation in his protest ! 

“ I wasn’t thinking of money at all. Colonel,” he 
went on. “ You regard me as nothing but a debased 
scoundrel ; and sometimes, when I’m getting over 
one of my long debauches, and remorse is gnawing 
my very heart and brain, I think more poorly of 
myself than you possibly can now, and I feel as 
though I deserved to be forsaken by God and man. 
But I tell you, there’s a little good left in this miser- 
able hulk yet ; and because you’ve treated me so 
handsomely I’m going to convince you of it. Look 
at this !” 

He held up his hand to the light of the nearest 
lamp — a small, slender hand, white and delicately- 
veined, with taper fingers and oval, well-kept 
nails ; a dainty, even aristocratic hand, that had es- 
caped all the wreck and ravage wrought upon the 


134 


A MODBR^r MIRACLE. 


man by his ruthless enemy. I became so interested 
in looking at the hand that he had to tell me that 
he wished me to look at something else. 

“ The ring,” he said ; on the little finger.” 

A new surprise ! It was a large, blue onyx-stone 
seal ring, Avith an old English finely cut 

upon it ; and it was the very counterpart of one 
that I wore. Two could not be made more alike. 

‘AYhere did j^ou'get that?” I asked. 

“Get it? I’ve worn it since I was tAventy years 
old — now most thirty years ago. It was my poor, 
dear mother’s gift after I was expelled from college ; 
when I came home, and father turned me away, 
minister of God as he was. ‘ Go, wretched boy !’ 
he said. ‘ Go, and never let me look upon your face 
again. Bring not your disgrace home to me — I will 
not have it.’ But mother followed me to the vil- 
lage ; Avept over me ; made me promise to reform ; 
kissed me and hung upon my neck, sobbing that she 
would never give me up ; i^nd, last of all, she gave 
me money and put that ring on my finger. 
meant it for your present AAfiien you should come 
home with your diploma, LaAvrence,’ she faltered. 
‘ But you shall have it, anyAvay.’ Poor Avoman — 
poor Avoman ! She Avent to her grave broken- 
hearted over me. I never saw her after that day. 
Well, Colonel, I’m bad enough, God knows. I’ve 
been about as Ioav doAvn as a man can be; I’ve 
Avalked hundreds of miles of railroad track; I’\^e 
paAvned Avatch and even coat for food; I’ve been 
hungry for days, as you found me this evening ; I’A^e 
Avalked the streets all night, in lack of Avhere to lay 


A MODBEJV MIRACLE. 135 

my head; I’ve begged; I’ve borrowed, when I 
could ; almost stolen ; but I never gave up that 
ring ! When I was footsore, fainting with hunger, 
driven from the barns where I had sought shelter 
by men and dogs, and the money I could have got 
for that ring would have made me comfortable for 
weeks, I would not sell it ! I never will part with 
it ; to the grave it shall go with me, whether that’ll 
be in one of the rivers or the Potter's Field. It’s 
the one thing that reminds me of a time when I 
was loved, when I had hope ! Ah, God ; does she 
see me now ? Does she love me and hope for me 
still?” 

He bared his head ; he raised his hand with the 
glistening ring ; his upturned face quivered ; tears 
rolled upon it. Thus I left him as I walked quietly 
away. 


136 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


CHAPTER III. 

‘AT A CEISIS. 

D URIHG the following day I called at the 
addresses given me by Hunt, and transacted 
the business which was the pretext and excuse for 
my coming to Hew York. It had not occurred to 
him or to any other in Montville to ask me why I 
need take a week to discharge a very simple matter ; 
but the fact that I was a public man and a rising 
politician was of course taken into account. That I 
should deem it advisable to pass a week in the 
metropolis at any time would be deemed at home 
the natural and correct thing. That “ the Mayor is 
in Hew York” would be satisfactory to everybody. 

With this errand off my hands, I set to work 
seriously to contrive how I was to disappear in such 
a way as to cause a certainty of my death to be felt. 
I had supposed that the wa}^ would easily present 
itself when I got ready to seek for it. How, to my 
surprise and consternation, I found that I was unable 
to devise anything that would be satisfactory to me. 
My smartness was not of that kind. 

By simple and silent flight I should be self-be- 
trayed. The evidence that I had stopped at the 
Kremlin, how long I had stayed there, and when I 
had left, would appear on its register. 


A MIHAOIM 


W 

Various clumsy devices, such as the attempt to 
get false intelligence into the newspapers, Avere con- 
sidered and rejected. Such imposition would cer- 
tainly be detected. The more I thought it over, the 
clearer it appeared to me that the men who 
‘‘mysteriously disappeared” in ^^ew York, through 
some other agency than a criminal one, either had 
their plans skillfully laid beforehand or were re- 
markably favored by chance. I was very anxious to 
know how they did it ! 

The week passed on and I could make nothing of 
the riddle I had set myself. I pondered upon it in 
my rooms by the hour ; I walked the streets and 
sought the solution ; I went doAvn the bay and up 
the rivers on the boats, thinking, Avatching, striving 
for a hint to point the Avay out of the difficulty. I 
even attended the theaters, hoping to get light from 
the plots of the plays. All useless; nothing came of it. 
The thing had evidently been often done — but hoAV ? 

I grew restless and feverish ; I began to dread 
meeting somebody from Montville, lest my abstrac- 
tion and nervousness should be noticed. The more 
obscure the Avay out seemed, the closer I clung to 
my cherished project of disappearing Avith honor. I 
Avas at last driA^en to the desperate strait of relying 
Avholly upon "the quick Avit and large experience of 
the vagabond Galton to contrive Avhat absolutely 
baffled me. I had proposed merely to make use of 
the felloAv’s cleverness in an incidental Avay, but 
noAV I found myself actually depending upon his in- 
genuity and impatiently waiting his coming. On 
the afternoon of the morroAV I should be expected 


m 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


home, according to my own promise ; and I could 
have cursed myself in the slow-creeping hours of 
that Monday and Tuesday for not having made an 
earlier appointment with Galton. I had exhausted 
my own ingenuity ; I turned to his. 

On the afternoon of the day last named I care- 
fully wrote the letter to Hunt that has been referred 
to, and paced my parlor, wearing away the time. I 
was in the presence of a crisis. 

An unthought-of phase of the present situation 
suddenly occurred to me with a great shock. For a 
moment it upset me. 

Assuming that Galton would be able, upon my 
demand, to propose an acceptable plan, what ^vas to 
be done with him. when it had been put into execu- 
tion? Could I leave the cunning rascal behind, 
ready to sell my secret for money ? IN^o ! But what 
was the alternative ? Simply to take him with me, 
wherever I might go, in order to insure his silence. 
I thought of Julia, of my hastening to her wdth this 
horrible encumbrance, and I groaned in the torment 
of my spirit. I should be a modern Sinbad, carrying 
on my back another Old Man of the Sea ! 

At half-past seven 1 stood by the railing above 
the basement on the side-street and w^aited. In a 
few minutes a man came lurching heavily up, and 
accosted me in a thick voice. "With anger and dis- 
gust I took him by the shoulder and turned his face 
full to the light. Here was Mr. Lawwence Galton, 
eyes blood-shot, face all aflame, and bearing with 
him plenty of other evidence of indulgence in a pro- 
tracted spree. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


139 


^'Wretch!” I said, retiring from him, “get out of 
my sight. I want nothing more to do with you.” 

My anger somewhat restored his faculties. He 
spoke intelligibly, though with frequent hiccoughs. 

“ Don’t leave me here. Colonel,” he pleaded ; “ I’ve 
got a den over on Mott Street, where I can lie down. 
Help me there.” 

“ Go to the devil !” was my savage answer. 

“ The police will get me if you go away. I don’t 
want to be sent up now ; I want to help you^ the 
only man that has been kind to ,me for years. Let 
me lie down, and I’ll be all right in three or four 
hours.” 

Without answer I unlocked the small door, and 
was about to enter and close it in his face when he 
uttered a last appeal. 

“You might be in my place mow. Colonel, if — if 
things were different. Maybe you’ll be there yet. 
Think of that, and don’t be hard on me.” 

In his sober senses, in his most brilliant moments, 
the vagabond could not have uttered words to cut 
me more keenly. Like a flash I saw myself as I was 
in that hour, morally bankrupt, deliberately plan- 
ning a monstrous fraud in the wild pursuit of happi- 
ness, and still striving to preserve the poor thing 
that I called my honor. What was /, that I should 
judge him 1 

All repulsive as he was, I seized him and dragged 
him inside. I helped him up-stairs, luckily meeting 
no one in the hall, and soon had him safe in my 
chamber. I held him at the wash-basin and com- 
pelled him to wet his face and head ; I helped him 


140 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


off with his coat and boots, and conducted him to 
the bed. He was asleep in two minutes. 

His reproof had startled me so that I felt not the 
least anger toward him. I was troubled and con- 
fused, but still had some hope that he would sleep 
off his debauch before morning. Sure that there 
was no present hope of his waking, I left him and 
went out on the street again. I turned the gas low, 
but in my perturbation forgot to lock the door lead- 
ing into the hall ; which circumstance I recalled af- 
terward. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


141 


CHAPTEE lY. 

MY DEEADFUL DEATH. 

I HAVE a confused recollection of wanderingjthat 
evening for two hours in the lower part of the 
city. I remember some of the places that I visited, 
and what I did there ; as to other of my movements, 
my mind is a blank. The time was so near at hand 
when I must decide, and everything was as yet so 
undecided, that my mental disturbance grew more 
and more acute, and rapid physical motion became 
positively necessary. Strange to say, as I roamed 
and ruminated, my thoughts* hardly went back to 
Lawrence Galton at all. The poor creature had 
well-nigh dropped out of my calculations ; my mind 
was running on disguise and deception, without any- 
thing yet being evolved out of the chaos. Hence it 
was that I found myself passing along Chatham 
Street, pausing to look at the curious displays in 
front, and listening to the voluble chatter of the 
sharp Isaacs ; hence I allowed myself to be taken by 
the arm and conducted into the mysterious recesses 
of one of these receptacles of ver}’^ second-hand 
clothing, and all odds and ends. I must have said 
something to the proprietor about disguise, for I was 
taken still further back, old suits were overhauled 
and displayed, and I was assured by the eager Is- 


142 


A MOBERJSf MIRACLE. 


raelite that he was dying to fix me out “ shoost so 
lofely as never vas.” In some way I effected my 
escape from him without making a purchase at that 
time, and next came to a realization of mundane 
things within the Bowery Theater, where a roaring 
and highly picturesque melodrama occupied the 
stage, to the vociferous delight of a crowded house. 
The piece was full of action, violence, shrieks, pow- 
der and blood, and seemed to be perfectly under- 
stood by all but me. In a few minutes I wearied of 
it and went out to roam again. I remember looking 
at my watch near the City Hall and finding that the 
hour was after eleven. 

Hot long after that I thought of Galton, and the 
suggestion that I ought to look to him at once took 
possession of my mind, just as other ideas came and 
went on that turbulent night. I took my course up 
Broadway. Above Canal I heard the rattle and 
roar of steam fire-engines going by, and presently I 
was conscious of a decided drift of the crowd in the 
direction I was pursuing. A thick volume of smoke 
rolled up ahead, and there was a bright glare that 
made the vicinity painfully light. The crowd 
quickly became dense, and struggled to get on. I 
struggled with them, and was making my way 
through, when I reached a point where a cordon of 
policemen, stretched across the street, barred any 
further advance. 

The dense mass of people heaved and surged rest- . 
lessly, as agitated as a mountain torrent would be 
if checked in its course; a rising murmur ran 
through it — the colleotive ^ound of subdued speech; 


A MODERN miracle. 


143 


while from up the street could now plainly be 
heard the roaring and crackling of the flames, the 
outburst of torrents of water from the pipes, and 
even the fierce hissing of the two elements as they 
met. Blacker and more densely rolled up the 
.smoke, and the heat became so intense that the 
crowd where I stood felt and yielded to the back- 
ward flow from above. 

What is it a man near me asked. 

The Hotel Kremlin,” somebody replied. 

My heart took a great bound, and then intermit- 
ted two or three, pulsations. My excited imagina- 
tion leaped forward and grasped the possible result. 
My way was being shaped for . me as I could not 
design it ! 

I was pressed up against a lamp-post by the con- 
tinued surge of the crowd. I lifted myself so that 
my feet rested on the slight projection formed by its 
decreasing size, and my head was elevated above the 
mass. Then a magnificent, a fearful sight was 
opened to me. The long, lofty front of the Krem- 
liil was illuminated by fires that burst from every 
window and thrust thin tongues up through the 
roofs, the wind drifting the smoke away as it rose, 
so that the whole lurid picture was visible. The 
heat had driven everything human from the street 
in front; the firemen were playing their streams 
upon the adjacent buildings, hoping to confine the 
conflagration to the hotel. How long I held on to 
the vantage of my observatory I do not know ; the 
spectacle fascinated me, and I hung to it despite 
the pain of strained muscles and aching limbs. I 


144 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


heard the crash of falling roofs-and inner walls, and 
saw the brilliant display of millions of sparks shot 
skyward. I held on after that, while the fire 
seethed white-hot through the debris, and occasion- 
ally forked out of window-openings. I held on till 
nature would bear the torture no longer ; and it was 
after midnight when I yielded my place and mingled 
again with the crowd. 

Snatches of their talk reached me as I made my 
way out, striving to get down Broadway again. In- 
complete utterances came to me — speech that I 
waited not to hear, but gathered up as I passed 
through. 

‘‘ Man ” 

“ They say there was one ” 

“ Some man staying ” 

“ Don’t believe he could get ” 

“ One man burned up ” 

The burden of the unvarying theme rang in my 
ears after I had cleared myself of the crowd and was 
again roaming the streets. It set itself to a dismal 
chant, which sounded through my brain as loud as 
though fog-horns and calliopes had shrieked it : 

One man burned, 

One man burned, 

Burned in the Kremlin fire. 

A horrible vision, too, went with me upon the wild, 
aimless wanderings of that night. It was of poor, 
stupefied Lawrence Galton, lying upon my bed in 
m}^ chamber, smothered with drifting, rolling smoke 
before he could know the agonies of a worse fate, 
ere the hungering flames enveloped him, and the 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 145 

tooth and claw of devouring fire consumed his miser- 
able flesh. 


The Isaacs of Chatham Street are early astir to 
catch the first drift that comes their way ; it was 
not much past seven when I gained admission to the 
innermost sanctum of the one I had visited the 
previous night. In half an hour a man came forth 
from that den with cleamshaven face, hollow-eyed 
and wrinkled, stooping and feebly progressing with 
a stout stick, clad in a suit aged enough to call for 
respect, with a battered slouch hat shading his face. 
He had required the clothes he removed to be 
burned before his eyes. 

He made his way slowly to the nearest news- 
stand and purchased a morning paper. He turned 
eagerly to the account af the burning of the Hotel 
Kremlin. He read that it was very certain that one 
of the guests had perished in the flames ; for Mayor 
Gronnan of Montville could not be found, and the 
statement of the bell-boy seemed to leave no doubt 
of it. And then the lame old man smiled, for he 
knew that he was himself dead ! 


146 


A MODBilJsr MIRACLE. 


CHAPTEE Y. 

A MODERN MIRACLE. 

4 r 

B ut I could not be 'content with the apparent 
result of the amazing train of circumstances 
that had occurred. I wanted assurance that all was 
as I wished ; that there was no expression anywhere 
of lurking suspicion as to the lonafides of. my death. 
Secure in my disguise, I resolved to delay my 
departure until I should be fully assured. 

In the afternoon I went to the scene of the fire, 
and with a thousand more watched the streams 
playing upon the burning ruins. I heard much talk 
of efforts that were soon to be made to take the re- 
mains of the unfortunate man from the blackened 
and charred wreck of the hotel. Waiting for awhile 
to see the attempt made, I became weary and went 
away. I returned to the poor lodgings, suited 
to my outward appearance, that I had taken in 
Avenue B, and slept through the day. The needs 
of nature would assert themselves over my nervous 
strain and bodily exhaustion. 

Salljing forth again at night, I learned from the 
evening papers that the remains of the missing guest 
of the Hotel Kremlin had been taken from the ruins, 
both face and body so frightfully burned and 
charred as to be past identification ; but that, fort- 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


147 


unately, there were marks which made the recogni- 
tion complete. A peculiarity of the gold-filling of 
the front upper teeth, which was unaffected by the 
heat or fire, was immediately recalled by the head 
clerk of the hotel, who said that he had often no- 
ticed the same in Colonel Gorman. The bell-boy 
was equally positive as to this mark. Both these 
two. and others also identified the great onyx seal 
ring on the skeleton little finger of the left hand, 
with its G ” in old English letter. The deceased 
Mayor of Montville had frequently shown it with 
pride, as the gift of the officers of his regiment when 
it was mustered out. 

Thus the proofs accumulated ; the evidence that I 
was really and truly dead thickened. On the next 
day a coroner’s jury viewed, the remains, took brief 
testimony, and returned a verdict that the remains 
were those of the Honorable Ellard Gorman, late of 
the city of Montville, State of Hew York, and that 
he perished by accident in the fire of the Hotel 
Kremlin, on the night of the eleventh instant. 

Late that afternoon I gained access to the under- 
taker’s rooms, where, in a costly casket, with the 
whole lid removed, and a satin sheet covering, the 
remains had been placed. The crowd was barred 
out ; I' owed it to my pathetic plea that the deceased 
had been my friend, and that I wanted to look upon 
all that was left of him, that I was admitted. But 
a few were present ; among them the committee 
from Montville, which had just arrived. I saw 
them ; yes, I looked into the faces of Weldon Hunt 
and Alvin Baker, and Mr. Joy, the bank president, 


148 


A MIRACLE. 


unknown and unsuspected ! The sheet was turned 
back from the horrid relics of humanity beneath — 
the ghastly, grinning skull, the protruding bones, 
the black integuments clinging to them — and the 
committee were invited to examine as to the pecul- 
iar marks noticed. Briefly they did so, and turned 
aw^y, heart-sick but satisfied. I lingered a little. 
Kelentless in my purp'ose, naturally unsentimental, I 
yet could bestow a lingering thought of compassion 
upon the poor remains before me. I even took the 
bony hand in mine, with the ring, the counterpart 
of Avhich I had hurled into the East Biver that 
morning. My mind went back to the scene of my 
parting with the wretched outcast on the night of 
my first meeting with him ; I saw again his delicate 
hand, his dissipated face raised tearfully to heaven, 
as he cried aloud to the mother, somewhere beyond, 
who had loved him above all heart break and sor- 
row. I do not often pray ; the man intent upon the 
business that then occupied me can hardly have the 
right to pray ; and yet something like a prayer m- 
audibly escaped me, that the mother who had borne 
and suffered and died for this poor lost child of the 
All-Father might now take him back again to her 
arms. 


And still I was not content! hTothing but the 
grave, the report of the last obsequies, could satisfy 
me! 

In due time this report reached the metropolis, 
and was published in all the daily journals. The 
extraordinary circumstances of the case, as well as 


A MIRACLE. 


149 


the well-known prominence of the deceased in local 
and State politics, made a lengthy mention of the 
proceedings at Montville good matter to print. 
News editors approved the long telegrams, and 
passed them all ; and I suppose that a million peo- 
ple in this land read of the lying-in-state of the de- 
ceased Mayor ; the public meeting that was held ; 
the resolutions that were passed ; the tolling of 
bells ; the draping in black of the little city ; the 
funeral sermons and orations ; the firing of minute- 
guns ; the parade of civic and military societies at 
the funeral ; the deep grief that was upon the place. 

I suppose that the people read all this, /read it, 
most eagerly. And reading it^ I made the mental 
comment — “ It does really look as if I were dead.” 


Not many days after the fire I was speeding West 
with all the power of steam. I was inwardly ex- 
ultant, knoAving that all bonds were severed that 
held me from Julia, impatiently hurrying on to find 
her, yet casting a final thought backward upon the 
strange situation I was leaving. 

, Ellard Gorman was dead and buried. There were 
thousands of witnesses to the fact. There were so 
many, that if it ever became necessary to prove the 
fact in a court of justice, the Judge would say, after 
a little, “ Keally, gentlemen, there is no use of piling 
up proofs in this way. You couM not prove this 
man any more dead, or any deeper buried, if we 
should sit here a week.” 

Yet I knew that Ellard Gorman was on a west- 


150 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


bound train, seeking a new life, turning his back on 
the past, and on all it had made him. 

And I know that the highest obsequies had, by a 
strange error, been paid to the wretched remains of 
Lawrence Galton. Dishonored, despised in life, 
death had brought him the poor recompense of such 
a funieral pageant, such mortuary honors, as are al- 
lowed to few Americans. Cheerfully I regarded it 
all as A Modern Miracle. 


A MiJiAOZM 


lol 


CHAPTEE YI. 

A BAFFLING QUEST. 

I HAD SAID to Weldon Hunt that I had no 
knowledge of the present whereabouts of his 
cousin. The statement was of course a falsehood. 
By means which it is unnecessary to mention here, 
I had satisfied myself that she had returned directly 
to WyQaseo from Montville. To the former place I 
now made all haste, boldly discarding my Chatham 
Street disguise west of the Mississippi. 

In the last days of May I reached it, after a weary 
journey. I arrived late, was kept awake almost till 
daylight with delicious anticipations of meeting 
Julia in themiorning, and with hopes of a welcome 
reception. In the morning I went forth eagerly, 
after breakfast, to prosecute my search. 

M^ycaseo had sprung into being upon the survey 
of the line- for the first Pacific railway. The site 
was an inviting one among the foothills of the east- 
ern slope of the Eocky Mountains, and the road was 
rapidly being pushed out east and west. It was, as 
I saw it, a crude Western town, with disagreeably 
hilly and muddy streets, its outskirts breaking out 
into a profusion of frame buildings, and much tem- 
porary construction being seen in the business parts ; 
yet it was already a thriving place, with a manifest 
future of growth and prosperity before it. 


A MOMnir MIRACLE. 


m 

I walked along the principal street, and inquired 
the way to the High School. It was pointed out to 
me ; a mammoth frame building, resembling an ex- 
hibition-shed. 

I passed up and down before it. Observing a 
scholar entering the gate, I hastened to interview 
heri 

“ Is this the High School I asked. 

“Yes, sir.’’ 

“ Who is the lady teacher ?” 

“ We.haven’t any now. Only the minister’s wife 
teaches till we get a new one.” 

“ Who was the last lady teacher ?” 

“Miss Bement, sir.” 

“ Where is she now ?” 

“I don’t know. She went away a week ago. 
She’d only just begun the new term.” 

“ Don’t you know where she went ?” 

“Ho, sir.” 

I walked on. Here was disappointment at the 
very threshold of my quest. But I was prepared 
for even greater discouragement before my eyes 
should be gladdened Avith the sight of her Avho Avas 
all the world to me now. 

Hesitating a moment as to Avhere to press my fur- 
ther inquiries, the sign of the post office met my 
eye and I entered the building. I asked for the 
postmaster, and that official presented himself. 

“ I am looking for a Miss Julia Bement, Avho has 
been a teacher here,” I said. “ Did you knoAv her ?” 

“ Oh, yes ; everybody in Wycaseo knew her ; and 
right sorry Ave Avere to lose her, too.” 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


153 


She has left town, then 

“Yes; she had been East a year, and came back, 
to our great satisfaction. But she had only taken 
her place again, when such a promising offer came 
from the South that she declared she must accept it. 
So we let her off — very reluctantly, I tell you — and 
she left us.” 

“ Can you give me her address 

The postmaster looked forbidding and wise. 

“ I don’t believe I can,” he replied. 

“ That is singular,” I ventured. 

“ NoC so singular, either, if you knew the lady. 
But perhaps you did ?” 

“ Yes ; I have had some acquaintance with her.” 

“ Then you may know the reason for her wanting 
to conceal her present residence; I don’t. She’s 
certainly a most estimable lady, and she’s a right to 
have and keep her secrets, for all of you or me. My 
promise to her, as well as the general instructions of 
the post office department, absolutely forbid my 
telling you where she is.” 

I pondered a moment and grew heart-faint. What 
could this sudden flight, this concealing of her ad- 
dress mean, except that she feared my pursuit and 
importunity ? 

“ She has correspondents here ?” I suggested. 

“One or two of our ladies. But you could find 
out nothing from them, even if you knew where to 
look for them. They bring their blank envelopes to 
me, and I direct them ; they never see the address. 
Her letters to them are posted at some little South- 
ern hamlet, where she persuades the postmaster not 


154 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


to stamp them. Oh, I tell you that 'woman made 
good arrangements for not being discovered ! 8he’s 
a keen one.” 

I was becoming desperate as I listened. My funds 
were low, but I was in a fever to find Julia Bement. 
I took out twenty-fiye dollars and laid it down 
before him. 

“ Tell me where to find her and you shall have 
that,” I said. 

The man became purple and hot with indigna- 
tion. 

‘‘What! You offer to bribe me? Get out of 
here, sir ; I won’t talk with you further.” 

“ I beg your pardon ; I did not mean to offend. 
But I am very anxious to find her. You would not 
blame me, you would try to help me, if you knew.” 

“Well, never mind. You look like a good fellow, 
and I’d like to help you ; but I can’t. What’s your 
name ?” 

“ Edward Hanchett.” 

“ Ah ! Did you ever live in Montville, State of 
Yew York?” 

My heart beat loud and fast as I answered, “ Yo ; 
I’m from Kentucky.” 

The postmaster took a letter from a pile in front 
of him and held it up. 

“ People in that place write to her, and I send on 
the letters. Here’s one just come.” 

I recognized the handwriting of Hunt. I knew 
that my directions were being promptly complied 
with ; I was certain that the fifty thousand dollars 
would in due course reach Julia ; here was doubtless 


A MOJJEnir MIRACLE, 


155 


the information of my death and wishes, and pro- 
posals and requests about the forwarding of it. Oh, 
that I knew where to find her! I could wait 
patiently until I had learned that she had received 
this money, and then I would seek her out, tell her 
all, and urge her again to go beyond seas with me, 
where we* might be happy. 

“Sir,” I said to the postmaster, “if that lady 
knew what I could tell her, she would be eager to 
see me. AVhen she asked you not to divulge her ad- 
dress, she did not anticipate what might happen. 
Tell me where to find her and she will thank you, 
some day, quite as much as I will now.” 

The postmaster looked me over quizzically. 

“I expect you’re in love with the lady — eh?” 

“Yes,” I replied, doggedly. “Does that help 
soften you ?” 

“I can’t say that it does. From the directions 
Miss Bement gave, me, it’s tolerable certain she isn’t 
much in love with '^ou. She seems to have been 
providing against just such onslaughts as you are 
making on me. ]No, Mr. lianchett, I can’t do it. 
Aside from my official duty here. I’ll never have it 
said that I was false to a woman’s confidence. 
You’ll have to look somewhere else; but it’s mighty 
little information you’ll get in Wycaseo, I guess.” 

So it turned out. My inquiries were cautiously 
made, as I feared to direct attention and inquiry to 
myself. Weary days passed before I could get any 
light on her movements. She had carefully involved 
her flitting in secrecy, which puzzled while it could 
not discourage my ardor. 


156 


A MODERN MlliAOLE, 


CHAPTEE YIL 

^ CHASING A BUBBLE. 

A WEEK or two longer I stayed in Wycaseo. I 
exhausted all sources of information, and ’was 
at last rewarded with one small item that seemed to 
point the way to future discoveries. It was told me 
by two or three different persons that the gentleman 
who came to escort Miss Bement away from town 
had a trunk that was marked “ Gardette — Katchez.” 
He had not stayed at any hotel ; I could not discover 
where he had stayed during the days that he was in 
Wycaseo; but the information given me contained 
a clew, which I promptly followed up. 

With ail speed I returned to St. Louis, and took 
passage on a down-river boat for Natchez. 

Meantime, my funds were running low. Of the 
five hundred dollars that I brought from Montville, 
less than seventy-five remained. Brought sternly 
face to face with the question of ways and means, 
I began to see, as I had not seen before, the position 
in which I had placed myself. Not only had I sur- 
rendered my property, my name, and my very per- 
sonality, but I had with these given up my credit. 
I ’was as unknown, as little respected, as the veriest 
tramp ; and my credit was no better. I began to 
hunger for my relinquished wealth ; for the large 
part of it that Julia now controlled. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


157 


For this reason, also, the pursuit of her became 
my only hope. ‘‘Find her,’’ I said to myself; “tell 
her your story ; show her your sacrifices and suffer- 
ings ; put it truly and strongly to her sympathetic 
woman’s heart, and you will win her.” So I 
thought ; and I husbanded hope and energy in the 
search for her. 

It was a blazing day in mid- June when I landed 
at IsTatchez-under-the-Hill, slim in purse, feeble in 
body from long and overstrained excitement, and 
endeavored to walk a few rods to the hotel, while a 
negro carried my carpet-bag. I had not taken 
twenty steps when the porter cried out : “ Fo’ God, 
Massa, what’s de mattah wid yo’ My brain was 
burning, my strength was exhausted ; I staggered 
and fell headlong. 


It was some two weeks following this that I fully 
returned to life in the Natchez hospital. The doctor 
told me that some two dozen cases of yellow fever 
had been treated there during my time ; that some 
not so sick as I had died ; and that the fact of my 
own recovery was a wonder to him, which he could 
only account for by the well-known fact that some 
human constitutions would bear almost anything, 
and that mine seemed to be one of this class. 

As I became convalescent, I noticed that flowers 
and fruit were frequently placed on the table at the 
side of my cot ; and one day I remarked to the 
doctor that the people of Natchez were kind indeed 
to strangers, when such treatment could be given 
them as that which I had received. 


158 


A MODBUJSr MIRACLE. 


Oh, yes,” he replied. “ W e do all we can ; do it 
pretty thoroughly, too, until a general pestilence 
comes on, when we are obliged to appeal to our 
hlortliern brothers for aid.” 

Perhaps you could tell me who it is that has 
heeh so kind as to send these repeated gifts of lus- 
cious fruit and beautiful flowers to me ?” 

‘‘Yes — I could,” he answered. “Put, being un- 
der a pledge of secrecy, I won’t.” 

That was all I could get from him. But a day or 
two later I found in a magniflcent bouquet of South- 
ern roses a card, bearing simply the name, “ Gar- 
dette.” 

I grew strong enough to walk. Hungering to 
hear something of the place and the people where, 
as I could not now doubt, in this vicinity, Julia Be- 
ment had her home, I made inquiries on the streets. 
I learned that the Gardette plantation was some 
four miles back from Hatchez-on-the-Hill ; that it 
was the largest and most thriving of the cotton- 
lands of that vicinity; and that it was owned byM. 
Jean Gardette, a lately settled French immigrant, 
but practically carried on by his son Leon. Inquir- 
ing as to whether there was a member lately added 
to the family, I was told that a very fine lady had 
been there a few weeks — a Northern school-teacher, 
whom young Monsieur Gardette had brought down 
the river to educate the orphan children of his de- 
ceased sister. 

That was enough for me. I went back to the hos- 
pital and wrote a long letter to Julia. I did not 
give her any details ; I thought that would be better 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


159 


done when we should be face to face ; but I told her 
that I was free — that I still loved her as man never 
yet had loved Avornan — and I implored her to come 
to me. 

The answer came tAvo days later from the doctor. 
I understood if better than he did. 

You are Avell enough to travel, Mr. Hanchett,” 
he said. 

“ I suppose so ; but I don’t want ” 

‘‘Ah, noAv, my dear fellow, please stop! Vve 
rather taken a liking to you since you’ve been here; 
you really seem like a man of some education and 
refinement, who has had circumstances against him. 
Well, Avell, that’s a very common story. I Avas only 
going on to say that a hospital patient who has been 
restored to life at the expense of the city of N^atchez 
shouldn’t. be over-particular about his goings and 
comings. A charitable lady here has bought you a 
ticket for St. Louis; you Avill go by the morning 
boat. May good health attend you 1” 

“ May I know Avho it is that takes such an interest 
in me I asked. 

“ISTo, sir ; you may not,” replied the doctor. “My 
instructions are positive on that point.” 


160 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


CHAPTEK YIII. 

IN VAIN. V 

I WAS back again at St. Louis, broken in health, 
almost penniless, on the verge of despair. Less 
than two months had passed since I had deliberately 
sacrificed everything to my passion for Julia Be- 
ment, and I had found that the sacrifice was a vain 
one, for she knew, she had learned in some way, 
of my sickness there in the hospital at Natchez ; she 
had taken measures to provide for my comfort, but 
would not see me, would not so much as send me a 
reply to my fervent letter. Nay, I could not doubt, 
after what had happened to me, that the doctor was 
acting by instructions, or at least by request, when 
he peremptorily caused me to be put aboard the boat 
and taken away. It was plain, then, that Julia re- 
pudiated me. Her steady virtue still triumphed 
over love — if, indeed, she had preserved the least 
spark of affection for me. 

So I had sinned in vain ! So I had thrown away 
all and gained nothing in exchange. Not often does 
retributive punishment come so quickly in this 
world, following upon the heels of the offense, as in 
my case. 

Still, I would not quite despair. I had not yet 
appealed to her as I wished. It could not be, I 


A MIBACZB. 


161 


thought, that the woman whom I had forced to the 
confession of love for me, though her flight had fol- 
lowed the confession, could now turn coldly from 
me. So I wrote her a long and passionate letter. 
With the utmost frankness did I lay bare my soul 
to her. Without reserve I told her what I had 
done, and that it had been done for love of her only. 
“ You never would have advised it, dear Julia,” I 
said ; ‘^you would not now consent to it if the mat- 
ter were not already far beyond your power to in- 
fluence, one way or the other. In brief, it is done ! 
I come to you with my fate in my hands. Grant 
that it Avas wrong, that it had better not have hap- 
pened. Still, it Aas happened. All that I said to 
you in Montville I say to you now. Think of my 
love* of my fldelity, if you must think of my sin. 
Let me visit you ; only send me permission to come. 
Let me plead my case now, and I will answer for 
the result.” 

The letter was brief, but it spoke to her with a 
tear in every line — in such anguished Avords as the 
Peri outside the gates of Paradise may have pleaded 
for admission. 

I addressed the letter to her at Hatchez, care of 
M. Jean Gardette, signing it EdAvard Hanchett,” 
and requesting her to address me by that name. In 
feverish suspense I Avaited for a reply ; in misery of 
soul and body, in the agony of hope deferred, I 
waited. Walking the busy streets I met more than 
one man knoAvn to me at the East ; but I Avas secure 
against detection ; nobody could have recognized me 
in the disguise that sickness and disappointment had 


162 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


put upon my face. In two weeks the answer came, 
written in a strange hand, with the name ‘^Leon 
Gardette” at the end. I read it, and saw every 
hope shattered at a blow. It said : 

The letter which you had the effrontery to send 
to a lady now an inmate of my father’s family 
was received by her. She will not reply to it, 
but she does me the honor to request me to make 
answer. I am hot her confidant as to any relations 
that have in the past existed between the lady and 
yourself, but I assure you that her commands are 
positive that you must not annoy her with more 
letters ; much less must you seek her personally. 
She bids me say that she perfectly understands the 
meaning of your letters, read in connection with one 
she has lately received from her former home in the 
I^orth, and that they furnish the best of reasons 
why she should not see you. She would add, that, 
while she does not wish ill to you, she might be 
driven to the painful alternative of inclosing your 
letters to her correspondents at Montville, State of 
l^ew York, in case your unwelcome attentions are 
continued. 

An inclosed slip bore the following, in the same 
hand : 

The within has been submitted to Miss Julia 
Bement, and is approved by her. I will now say a 
w^ord for myself, which she Avill not see. I assure 
you that I care as little as I know about what the 
lady may have been to you, or what you may have 
been to her. The fact that I wish to emphasize is, 
that she is at present an honored member of my 
father’s family, and that I will personally be very 
prompt to punish the slightest annoyance which 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


163 


may be hereafter inflicted upon her by you or any 
other. You know the Southern way. 

Was not this enough? I staggered when I 
reached the end, as though a knife had transfixed 
my heart. Absolutely hopeless now, I walked the 
steam boatdanding hour after hour, desperately re- 
solved to get to her and plead with her, even if I died 
at her feet. If that was folly, it was at least the 
folly of despair. My wild face and distressful man- 
ner attracted the attention of a kind boat -captain ; 
I told him, in answer to his question, that I was 
penniless, and that a case of life and death called for 
me at Natchez. With the humanity of his kind, he 
gave me a passage. 

At Yjcksburg many passengers came on board. 
Among them I recognized Julia Bement ! 


164 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


CHAPTEE IX. 

THE ;.AST PANG. 

I WAS SITTIXG by the rail on the side of the 
after-deck next the landing, and was immedi- 
ately above the gang-plank. Eecognizing her in- 
stantly, I could scarcely restrain my impatience to 
meet her, and had arisen, intending to hasten down 
the stairs, when I saw that she was attended by a 
gentleman. I ground my teeth and sat down again. 

The influx of passengers at this point quickly 
filled all the vacant chairs on the after-deck, so that 
when Julia and her escort had come up there were 
none to be had, and some of the new arrivals were 
standing. I rose and offered her my seat. She 
looked me full in the face as she thanked me, but 
she did not know me! There was just an instant’s 
hesitation, as though she noted something familiar 
in my features or expression ; but there was no 
recognition on her part. Oh, heaven 1 what change 
must have come over me in a few weeks, when she 
could meet me and pass mo by as a stranger ! 

Excuse me for a moment,” said her escort ; “ I 
will go and get the tickets.” 

He was a tall, shapely man, of about my own 
age, with aristocratic face and bearing, but with an 
unvarying pleasant expression, and a courtesy in his 


A MODmir MIRACLE. 


165 


manner that would impress any one. Though I 
marked him at once as the person who had replied 
to my letter to Julia, andThough I was prepared to 
hate him, on account of the contents of that letter 
as well as of his present association with her, his 
handsome, manly appearance spoke for itself and 
compelled my admiration. 

And Julia! Oh, how I loved her then, when she 
seemed infinitely removed from me I As grand as 
ever in her dark beauty, set off by her light cos- 
tume and straw hat, I thought that her face was a 
trifle thinner, her mien a little more serious than 
when I had last seen her. But she was there I 
I was standing directly behind her. Nobody was 
observing us ; her companion was away. 

“ Julia 1” I said, in a low voice. ‘‘ Julia 
Without turning her head, she answered me in 
the same tone : 

“ I know you. What> do you want 
“You know me?” I said, in amazement. 

“'Yes. You have compelled me to look for you, 
to expect you everywhere. Your conduct is more 
than bad; it is monstrous. I will not talk with 
you.” 

“ W ill you not give me a chance, elsewhere, if not 

here, to speak with you ? If you knew ” 

“ I know too much ! I cannot hear you. Better 
than any one else you hnow that you have no right 
to address such language to me. Will you not leave 
me? You will disturb my peace ; you may drive me 
from my new home, as you did from the old, as you 
did from Wycaseo ” 


166 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


“Impossible!” I interrupted. “What had I to 
do with your leaving there ?” 

“ I cannot tell you now, and I wish no opportu- 
nity to talk with you again. Leave me. Mr. Gar- 
dette is hot-tempered ; he might not control himself 
if he should find you here, and know who you are.” 

He returned while <she spoke. From that instant 
she entirely ignored me, though I stood so near that 
I heard much of their conversation, which seemed 
to relate mainly to prominent features of the river 
scenery, he pointing out many places to her. 

They went ashore at Hatchez. There was a car- 
riage waiting for them ; he assisted her in, and I 
saw it driven off up the hill. What was he to her ? 
And how did it matter, since I knew that she was 
nothing to me ? 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


167 


CHAPTEE X. 


A HOREOR OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

S THE boat cast off and steamed out again, 



and the buildii^s of Xatchez, above and below, 
faded in the distance, a strong temptation beset me. 
The devil whispered loudly to me ; he bad lain much 
in wait for me of late. I walked well forward and 
stopped near the bow, looking about to see that I 
was not observed. I looked down into- the rush of 
brown vraters at the side ; there was a moment’s ir- 
resolution; yet I might have- ended it all then and 
there — and perhaps that would have been better. A 
heavy hand was laid oh my shoulder, and the cheery 
voice of the captain spoke in my ear. 

Xow Avhat’s the matter with you, Ed Hanchett ? 
Down on your luck, eh ? You seem sour and moody. 
Thought you meant to get off at Natchez ?” 

“I did ; but I saw the party on this boat that I 
was anxious to see. That made it unnecessary for 
me to stop up there.” 

“ Ah, yes — I see. The ^ party ’ was that superb- 
looking woman you were talking with on the after- 
deck. She had a handsomer man along with her! 
You didn’t find much comfort in that quarter, I 
reckon. You have my sympathy; I should think 
jrou were old enough to have got over such troubles j 


168 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


but it’s the way of the world. Where are you bound 
for now ?” 

To the devil.” 

The perfect seriousness of my reply amused him. 
He laughed long and heartily. 

Pshaw, my boy; pluck up heart and never say 
die. I half-beli.eve How that you would have been 
at the bottom of the river if I hadn’t happened 
along. Just quit all such notions. You appear to 
be a keen, clever sort of fellow, but poor and un- 
fortunate. Cheer up, I tell you ; stick to this boat, 
and I’ll find you something to do. You’ll get your 
courage back when you get busy. You’re not going 
to the devil, by any means — if you are well on the 
way to Hew Orleans. So drive dull care away. 
Come into my cabin and have a glass of wine.” 

The captain’s cheerful, hearty friendship lighted 
a little the gloom that enveloped me ; it postponed, 
at least, the dark thoughts with which I was con- 
tending. Haggard, unkempt and ill-dressed as I 
was, there must have been something of the former 
stamp of high manhood in my face to arrest his 
attention. 

I made the trip to Hew Orleans with him, and re- 
mained on the boat when she started for her return. 
I moved about in a mechanical way, just as I ate, 
drank and slept — regarding existence merely as a 
dead-w eight. I watched and waited for some sharp, 
sudden visitation that would end it all and remove 
me from a life that had become a loathing to 
me. 

Such a stroke I thought had come on the night 


A Modern Miracle, leo 

of August 9, 1866, as the Crescent Belle was steam- 
ing from l^atchez on her way up. 

We had taken many passengers on at that land- 
ing, and the boat was almost crowded. I sat at the 
stern and saw the lights disappear from the hill, be- 
3 ^ond which was the mansion that sheltered her. 
The bitterness of death itself was upon me ; I felt 
impatient for the stroke to come that would release 
me. Something like a prayer escaped me that it 
might end soon and suddenly^ I acknowledged 
that the fault was mine, the hideous sin all my own ; 
but I entreated the peace of the grave, the only rest 
that remained to me. 

Life, in that moody moment, I thought not 
merely a paltry possession ; it was an intolerable 
burden. Yet how we all cling to it; how / would 
cling to it, now that the occasion had come when I 
might relinquish it ! 

reverie was dispelled by the loud noise of an 
explosion forward ; the shriek of escaping steam 
followed, mingled with cries of mortal agony. I 
heard the shouts of the captain as he tried to give 
orders, which were soon drowned in that wild up- 
roar of steam, and the screams of the living and 
unhurt who still saw their fate yawning for them 
between the devouring flames, the steam, and the 
blackness of the river below. The pilot turned the 
bows to the shore; but suddenly flames leaped 
through the deck, and mars.^s of smoke were carried 
by the wind into the pilot-house. So sudden came 
this new danger that the doors and windows could 
not be closed ere the pilot and his assistant were 


m 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


gasping for breath on the floor, while the smoke 
continued to pour in upon them. The wheel was 
idle; the great steamboat drifted down with the 
current, the steam still roaring, and the flames, 
swept by the wind, rapidly devouring the boat. 

Seeing that the stern was the apparent place of 
safety, the passengers frantically rushed for it. The 
wind suddenly veered, and fire and smoke were 
driven upon the shrinking, panic-stricken mass. A 
pandemonium of sound followed; nothing more 
frightful can be conceived. I heard prayers, blas- 
phemies, oaths and screams ; men and women 
jumped into the dark water from mere fright ; but 
the rapid march of the flames had seized the small 
boats, and those that we could see in the light of the 
flames putting out from the shore seemed to ap- 
proach tardily. The merciless fire was driven right 
back by the wind ; the heat became insupportable ; 
dozens dropped or jumped into the water, which was 
thick with struggling, frantic victims. Taking the 
plunge, I became as anxious to save my life as I had 
been a half-hour before to lose it. Striking out 
boldly for the shore, I thought I had cleared the 
writhing, floundering mass, when I was seized from 
below and dragged downward. 


A MIRACLE. 


171 


CHAPTEE XI. 

A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE. 

I IIAYE read somewhere that the change from 
life to death is merely another kind of awaken- 
ing, and that they who experience it recall the thing 
that we style ‘4ife’’ only as a kind of troubled 
dream. 

In some days 'and nights of semi-consciousness I 
fancied that I was reaching another existence. It 
seemed as if it was not yet attained ; but my spirit 
was continually mounting up and away from the 
sore warfare of the world. The past and its throng- 
ing scenes, especially the later ones, grew faint and 
dim. A certain rest and release were just within 
reach. 

This was the delusion of a brain unsettled by 
shock and sickness, which was rudely dispelled as 
mind and memory returned to the wasted body. 
Little by little, in the intervals of waking, I began 
to take mental note of familiar objects. A large, 
cool room, with many cots in it ; windows .looking 
out upon a stretch of broad river, with steamboats 
plying up and down — surely, this situation was 
known to me. One day I recognized a face looking 
down kindly at me. 

Well, Ed Ilanchett, you seem to be on the mend 
at last,” said the doctor. 


172 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


“ Where am I ?” was my feeble query. 

“Back again in the JSTatchez hospital, to be sure. 
Where did you suppose you were 

“Out of misery,” I groaned. “You have brought 
me back to it.” 

“A hard job we had of it, too, you ungrateful 
sinner! You were picked up by one of the shore- 
boats the night the Crescent Belle was burned, with 
no more life appearing in you than in a log. We 
worked over your body till we got your breath flut- 
tering a little — and now, at last, you seem to be in 
a fair way to live. But it has been a close thing 
with you, my fine fellow ! Coming so soon after 
the yellow-fever business, it pretty nearly wound 
you up.” 

“ How long have I been lying here ?” 

“ A month, at least.” 

I closed my eyes wearily. 

“Why did you not let me die?” I querulously 
asked. 

“ Tut, tut ! We cure people here, when .we can ; 
not kill them. Stop talking and go to sleep.” 

So I was dragged back to suffering. More weeks 
went on. I slowly rallied, became able to be dressed 
and walk about, and to sit for hours by the window 
gazing out upon the river. I ate and slept in a me- 
chanical way, and as convalescence brought back 
strength of mind, the mockery of thought still 
haunted me. I tried to shut the volume of the past, 
to accept my stunning defeat with com_posure, to 
resolve that I would go forth from this place to 
some career of danger, enlisting as a private soldier. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


173 


perhaps, and in the wild Indian warfare at the West 
court a fatal bullet or arrow. The man still strug- 
gled within me, urging me to die honorably, warn- 
ing me against the cowardice of suicide. In this 
way I strove to take account of the future ; while 
from each desperate resolve of this kind my 
maddening thoughts would fly to her^ but a few 
miles from where I sat, banning me forever from 
her presence. 

September was drawing to a close when the doc- 
tor one day asked me : 

“ Handle tt, do you feel strong enough to take a 
short ride 

“Yes,” I replied ; “ but I have no wish to.” 

“ That’s nothing to the case,” he rejoined, with 
perfect good-nature. “ Out-of-door exercise, by 
means of vehicle and horses, is directed for you, and 
I reckon you’ll take it. Get ready ; the establish- 
ment will be at the door in ten minutes.” 

. The fact that in this instance, as well as in many 
others, I was much better treated than the other 
patients, occurred to me ; but I was unable then to 
give it the proper significance. Presently I was 
taken out to the street, where a stately covered car- 
riage of the ante-helium, period at the South waited. 
I observed a coat-of arms on the panel, a negro 
driver on the box, and two spirited bays before it. 
The doctor shook me by the hand and gave me a 
smiling good-by ; strange that he should do that 
wdien he was merely sending me out for a ride ! A 
tall, well-formed gentleman, with fine face and a 


174 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


grave smile, assisted me to get in, followed me, and 
bade the driver go on. 

We went out over the hill and through the fertile 
plantation-country back of the town. Bewildered 
by what was occurring, I glanced furtively at my 
companion opposite me, whose curiosity mingled 
with his native politeness as he closely surveyed me. 
In ,a moment, seeing piy embarrassment, he begged 
my pardon, speaking with a decided French accent. 

^Wou have had a very narrow escape from death. 
Monsieur Hanchett, I am told. The second one, I 
hear, this summer. Fate is very unkind to you just 
now ; I am happy to become the agent in bringing 
you where you may rest awhile and get back your 
strength. Permit me to present myself ; I am M. 
Leon Gardette.” 

“ I have seen you before,” I said. 

‘‘ Indeed ! I don’t remember having the pleasure 
of meeting you. Where could it have been ?” 

“You were on the Crescent Belle on her last trip 
down. You came on board at Yicksburg, with — 
with a lady.” 

He was slightly discomposed at my remark, but 
tried to laugh. 

“ Yes, that is true ; but I did not see you ; not in 
a way to remember you. You were not pointed out 
to me.” 

“ Our acquaintance dates farther back than that. 
Monsieur Gardette,” I rejoined, taking what oc- 
curred to me to be the easiest road to the discovery 
of the meaning of this present surprising episode. 
“ After the rather peppery letter that I received at 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 1^5 

St. Louis from you, I had no reason to expect so 
friendly a reception as this.” 

His smile was quite fascinating now. He made a 
deprecatory motion with his hand as he replied : ^ 

“ Ah, fie, now ! Why recall unpleasant recollec- 
tions ? Hever would I have alluded to that letter, if 
you had not ; but since you compel me to speak of 
it, I must. You have lived as many years in the 
world as I have. Monsieur ; surely, you have learned 
that — how is it your English maxim has it? — ah, 
that ^ circumstances altef cases.’ What might have 
been quite proper for me to put into a letter to you 
in June would not be at all correct in September. 
Can you nof understand ?” 

I understand nothing about it. Less than any- 
thing else do I comprehend why yoit have taken the 
troubje to give me an airing.” 

He smiled again, but said nothing. 

Perhaps,” I added, you think my head is not 
in a fit condition for me to be told. But I insist.” 

You are very pale, and you are weak, I know,” 
he hastened to say, with sympathy in his face and 
voice. He dexterously arranged the carriage cush- 
ions behind me, and fanned me with his broad hat. 

If it fatigues you to talk,” he said, let us be si- 
lent. The journey will be short.” 

I understood his meaning at last. 

“Shall I not return to the hospital?” was my 
question. 

“ No. Did not the doctor bid you farewell?” 

“ I have a right to know what you propose to do 
with me. Will you inform me?” 


1 % 


A MODEUn MTRACLZ 


I am not forbidden to answer that,’’ he gently 
replied. But it may be better for you to wait, 
and let events disclose themselves. The doctor says 
you must not be excited.” 

‘‘ I will not be. Answer me !” 

“ Softly, softly ! If you were not a sick man I 
should take offense at your tone. I am taking you 
to the house of my father, M. Jean Gardette. My 
intentions are quite friendly.” 

Why should he, or you, desire such a thing ? I 
am a stranger to you both.” 

We do not particularly desire it,” and he stroked 
his mustache rather nervously. “ My father con- 
sents ; I agreed to bring you there. Another per- 
son requests it.” 

My sluggish heart gave a sudden bound. 

“ Tell me who !” I cried, starting forward and lay- 
ing my hand upon his arm. 

With his unfailing courtesy and good-nature still 
on the surface, I plainly saw that he looked an- 
noyed. 

“ You may as well know to-day as to-niorrow,” he 
slowly replied, “ since she would tell you then. It 
is Ma’m’selle Julia Bement who would have you 
brought to our place.” 

I fell back in a delirium of joy and hope. My 
companion assiduously fanned me, and through my 
half-closed eyes his face appeared somber to me, as 
though jealousy gnawed him. But to my excited 
vision the gates of earthly Paradise seemed again 
opening. 


A MonmN MIRACLE. 


m 


CHAPTEE XII. 


WITHIN THE GATES 



'HE CAEEIAGE turned into a wide drive- 


jL way and stopped before a large mansion, sur- 
rounded with verandas. Mr. Gardette assisted me 
out and up the steps, and presented me to his father 
and mother. They welcomed me in broken English, 
hardly intelligible but for the smiles and gestures 
accompanying, which left no doubt of their meaning. 
He was a florid, hale old man, approaching seventy, 
somewhat unwieldy, pleasant and affable, with a 
suggestion in his appearance of appreciation of the 
good things of life. Madame Gardette was a viva- 
cious little lady, whose charm of manner produced 
the illusion of beauty preserved, and whose voluble 
tongue ran briskly, upon my appearance and intro- 
duction. 

‘‘ Ah, charmante ! Ze friend of our dear Ma’m’- 
selle Bement ! Welcome, Monsieur — tres welcome! 
You do us too much honneurP 

“ Here is one whom I believe you know,” Leon 
said. 

He led her forward. She stood before me, tak- 
ing my hand with a grave inclination of the head 
and the words, uttered steadily and without emo- 
tion : 

You have heard your welcome, Mr. Hanchett. 


178 


A MIRACLE. 


I can add nothing more — only the hope that you 
may remain here until you shall be quite restored to 
health. Madame kindly promises me that.” 

I mumbled some reply — what, I know not — and 
presently we were all seated in cane-chairs under 
the shade of the veranda-roof. What was I to say — 
how say it? The cordial reception by the family 
amazed me ; Julia’s appearance and manner puzzled 
me. There was a seriousness in her face that was 
new to her ; her greeting was distant in manner and 
words, while her expression was that of profound 
compassion ; and ever, as she turned to me and spoke 
some commonplace, sorrow and pity shone in her 
dark eyes. Altogether, I was encouraged, if mysti- 
fied. It swiftly passed through my mind that my 
late misfortunes and dangers had touched her heart, 
and that pity would reinforce unwilling love for my 
final victory. For why else had I been brought 
here ? How otherwise had she, the inmate of this 
family for but a few months, been able to influence 
her patrons, her ardent lover, even, as Monsieur Leon 
seemed to be ? If admitted here at all, must it not 
be in the character of Julia’s possible suitor? 

So I was convinced, and my heart rose. The 
actions of Leon strengthened my belief. Unob- 
trusively, and with little talk, he was industriously 
attentive to Julia. His eyes followed her motions; 
he anticipated her wishes, bringing her water, hand- 
ing her a book or a fan, before she could make the 
request. I admired the devotion that was so plainly 
hopeless, and inwardly exulted at the assurance of 
my own success. 


A jYODBJiJV^ MIRACLE. 


179 


Sitting next* to her, the sight of her face stirred 
the fever in my heart. I could not wait. 

“ Let me thank you, Julia, for the kind treatment 
that you have at last given me,” I said,-in a low 
voice. “ I have not deserved it ; yet I thank you. 
As soon as time and place favor ” 

She stopped me with one look. 

Please say no more on that subject,” she said. 
^^You are an invalid at present; we have brought 
you here to aid your recovery. When that time 
comes, I wish to talk of yourself ; not before.” 

She showed neither confusion nor impatience ; she 
spoke steadily and composedly, looking unwaveringly 
in my face. There was nothing in either words or 
manner to discompose me, save her utter lack of 
warmth. But I would not torment myself with mis- 
givings, now that the path to success seemed so 
surely open ; and meanwhile, I was interested and 
even pleased to see the eyes of Monsieur Leon bent 
on us with attention and a kind of silent inquiry. 

I tried to relieve my feelings with a blundering 
attempt to convey my thanks to Madame Gardette 
for her kind hospitality. I put it into very bad 
French, which Leon was kind enough to interpret 
into the genuine tongue. 

The old gentleman looked on and listened, nodding 
his acknowledgments, while the vivacious French 
woman broke out into an ecstasy of superlatives, to 
denote her pleasure, which her son was so polite as 
to render into English. It was delightful, she said, 
for her husband, her son and herself to be of service 
to an unfortunate gentleman ; but she insisted that 


180 


A MODJ^BJV MIRACLE, 


my first thanks were due to Mademoiselle Julia. It 
was she who had represented the hardness of my 
case — sick almost to death, seeming to be pursued by 
misfortune, alone among strangers, far from home — 
ah, it was an honor to womankind that their dear 
Ma’m’selle could feel so ! Though she believed that 

I was not an utter stranger to their governess 

had merely a slight acquaintance with the 
gentleman some time ago at the North,” Julia hast- 
ened to interrupt. There was a faint tinge of red 
in her cheek ; but she avoided my eyes. Madame 
smiled graciously, and said — “ Exactly ; and that 
circumstance made Ma’m’selle’s humanity and kind- 
ness not less worthy.” The speaker and her family 
were glad indeed to second such fine manifestations 
of soul, and she trusted that Monsieur never would 
be sorry for the days that he had sojourned with 
them in search of health. With which pleasant 
speech, on the appearance of a colored servant, the 
lady asked us in to tea. 

Several coy and bright-faced children glanced in 
at the open doors while we sat at the table, and then 
ran off with peals of laughter. They tvere the 
orphan grandchildren whom Julia was trying to 
tame and educate, I was told. One I observed then — a 
little, deformed, misshapen thing with a crutch — who 
alone came to the table at Julia’s call. Her eerie 
black eyes looked me all over, and with the liberty 
that I soon discovered these children had at all times 
from their indulgent grandparents, the little Ninette 
demanded to know who I was. 

“ A poor gentleman who was almost drowned in 


A MODBBJV' MIRACLE. 


181 


the river when the boat was burned,” Julia an- 
swered. 

“ Ah^pauvre hommeP’’ said the sympathetic little 
creature, her eyes filling with tears ; and she scam- 
pered off to convey the news to the others. 

These people were all careful and considerate for 
me ; they would have had me go to bed at night- 
fall, insisting that I must be weary. But I declared 
that I needed nothing so much as the tonic of their 
kind company and conversation ; at which the old 
Frenchman and his wife smiled, and Julia turned to 
me a face that was distinctly sympathetic. It was 
she who arranged a shawl about my shoulders, and 
a spread over my lap, that I might not suffer from 
the cool air of the night. The moon was flooding 
the grounds with light, while we sat in the shade ; I 
sought to take her hand, but she hastily withdrew 
it. 

My first evening at the Gardette mansion was a 
specimen of many that followed during the ensuing 
month. The heartiness of the old people, the un- 
failing politeness of Leon (whatever else I might 
think of his conduct), and the sympathy manifested 
by Julia, although accompanied by a puzzling re- 
serve, all united to place me in the position of one 
of the family. I loved to chat with Monsieur and 
Madame, and my French improved so in a fortnight 
that I was quite able to carry on an ordinary con- 
versation with them in their own tongue, while 
their English gained correspondingly. I learned, to 
my surprise, that they had occupied this place but 
little more than a year. The death of two idolized 


182 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


daughters in quick succession in their charming 
home at Versailles had filled them with a grief that 
had taken on a not uncommon longing for new 
scenes. Leon, to whom Parisian life was every- 
thing, had been reluctantly brought to their way of 
thinking, and the family had emigrated to the 
United States. The former owner of this plantation 
Avas an old friend ; he had become discouraged by- 
the ravages and losses entailed by the Avar just 
closed, and Avas Avilling and anxious to sell out. 
Leon, they said, had taken hold briskly, had hired 
the former slaves of the place, Avas studying the 
subject of cotton-raising, and Avith the experienced 
help that he found in the Avhite overseers, some of 
Avhom drifted back after the war, he Avas hoping to 
make a grand success as a cotton-planter. His par- 
ents hoped that they all might end their days in 
this delightful place. 

Even in the absence of Julia, I Avould make no 
inquiries about her ; but the garrulous tongues of 
the old people did not leave me long in ignorance as 
to hoAV she had become knoAvn to them. It had oc- 
curred Oy a curious chance, they said, for Avhich 
they Avere very grateful. Early in the previous 
May, Leon had been filled Avith curiosity and inter- 
est by the newspaper accounts of the prosecution of 
the Avork on the, Pacific Kaihvay, and he took a brief 
trip up the river and over toAvard the mountains, to 
see for himself. At M ycaseo he visited everything in 
the toAvn that Avas to be seen, including the school ; 
and Avhen told that the lady teacher, Avhose ability 
as an instructress had excited his admiration, had 


A MIUAGLK 


183 


expressed a desire to go to the South, he bethought 
him of the children left by one of his sisterS, and of 
their need of a competent governess. lie sought 
an introduction, explained the situation and his 
wishes to the lady, and offered her a liberal salary 
to accept the place. In twenty-four hours he pro- 
duced to her such telegraphic indorsements and as- 
surances from iJ^atchez that she could have no doubt 
of the person with whom she was negotiating ; and 
the matter ended with her resignation at Wycaseo, 
and her coming South with Leon. 

Having heard this much, my thoughts went back 
to that stern, brief interview on the boat, when 
Julia informed me that I had driven her from Wy- 
caseo. I could understand it no better now than 
then. 

In all this talk of the old people, extended through 
many hours when I sat alone with them, I sought 
by various artful suggestions to discover whether 
they knew that Leon was Julia’s lover. They made 
it quite plain to me that they had never suspected 
anything of the kind. All their praises of the gov- 
erness, great as they were, stopped far short of the 
idea that she might be their daughter-in-law. They 
talked of her as they might have talked of a supe- 
rior servant, who was admitted to be a companion ; 
and as for Leon — his mother shook her artificial 
curls coquettishly at my suggestion of marriage, and 
declared that when her boy became ready for that^ 
he must go back to La Belle France and bring her 
the daughter of a Duke or a Marshal. 

In those delicious nights upon the veranda, when 


184 


A MODERAt MIRACLE. 


the fierce heat of the Southern sun had subsided, 
and the air was cooled by breeze and dew — there, 
and sometimes walking in the magnolia-grove that 
fronted the house, and listening to the rapturous 
song-birds — a spirit of contentment gradually stole 
into my breast. It seemed to me that the delicious 
peace and rest of this new life must hQ the forerun- 
ners of a happiness to come. Julia had not spokerr; 
I had at times, when I w^as able to exchange a few 
words with her alone, urged her to speak ; but she 
had invariably turned me off. “ When you are well 
and strong, Ellard,” she had once said, “ I must have 
a plain talk with you. I will select the time ; you 
cannot hasten me.” These were her words ; and, 
unable to give them other meaning, 1 took heart 
from her use of my Christian name, and her reassur- 
ing, gentle way. Without impatience I waited ; the 
time could not be much longer deferred. 

I saw her not many hours during the day. We 
met at the table, in the evening, and sometimes for 
an hour in the afternoon ; but her duties as govern- 
ess absorbed much of her time, and when I was able 
to see her briefly alone, her decided utterance al- 
ways stopped my appeals to her. Not now — 
wait,” she said to me a dozen times. So I waited 
and hoped. 

The rather ostentatious politeness of Leon Gar- 
dette toward me was changed into a manifestation 
of something like real feeling and good-fellowship, 
as I fancied, when he learned that I had been a sol- 
dier. He had himself borne a commission in the 
French service in Algeria in two of the most san- 


A MODBBJV MIRACLE. 


185 


guinary campaigns with the natives, and the ex- 
periences that we were able to exchange . gave a 
friendly zest to our intercourse. In several ways I 
thought he showed that he was not regarding me as 
a mere transient guest. He took me on long horse- 
back rides over the great plantation, explaining to 
me much about cotton culture, and what he expected 
to accomplish ; he told me with some pride of his 
system of dealing with the freedmen, and what large 
results he would reap by it. Like most Frenchmen, 
he grew very enthusiastic over any subject that in- 
terested him, and he spoke of this one with a species 
of eloquence. 

I thought I would try for a discovery. 

This is all well. Monsieur Leon,” I said one day, 
after listening some time to him. I rejoice at your 
good fortune and prospects ; I trust you may not be 
deceived in them. But. I am only a guest and a 
sojourner with you ; I almost feel that I have abused 
your hospitality. Why should not I leave to-morrow?” 

Ilis bright face suddenly became serious. ‘‘ Are 
you wearying of us ?” he asked. 

‘‘Ho; only wearying of an uncertainty, of a 
cankering pain that ought to have been stopped, 
some way, weeks ago. Why am I here? Leon 
Gardette,” and I became warm with excitement, 
“ you don’t treat me fairly. You brought me here. 
What was it for? Don’t tell me that old story^ 
about hospitality, the wish that I might win back 
my health and strength, and all that. You have all 
been kind ; but that does not explain the situation. 
Tell me what it all means,” 


186 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


We were sitting on the sward holding our horses 
by the bridles. He looked hard, almost sullen, and 
viciously pulled the grass. 

“ I don’t know,” he answered. ‘‘ When you must 
know, ask Ma’m’selle again. Insist on her telling 
you. ’Tis not for me to speak.” 

I learned that night. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


187 


CHAPTEE XIII. 

A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM. 

M y colloquy with Leon Gardette had at 
once shown me that there w^as some mystery 
under the surface of my hospitable treatment here, 
and his reticence upon my demand seemed to indi- 
cate that it was at least in part known to him. I 
reflected that Julia, in order to avail herself of his 
help in writing the letter I had received at St. 
Louis, in getting me dispatched thither from the 
hospital previously, and, again, in bringing me to 
this mansion, must have found it necessary to give 
Mr. Gardette a part of my history. Yet I could not 
suppose that she had put him in possession of the 
whole incredible drama in which I had figured ; in 
fact, I had seen nothing between the two which 
would justify the belief that she had treated him 
with such extreme confidence. While I could see 
that he admired her, he seemed very cautious in the 
manifestation of the sentiment. So far as I was 
able to judge, she seemed to give him no encourage- 
ment, treating him at all times with the same high- 
bred politeness that she showed .to others. I had 
not known of their being alone together for an hour 
since my coming to the mansion. What, then, was 
the mystery ? How could Leon Gardette, my rival, 


188 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


as he assuredly was, look with any complacency 
upon my presence here, and be to some extent in the 
confidence of Julia as to myself, while she so 
obviously discouraged his suit ? And her change 
toward me — what had caused it, how far did it 
extend, and why was she unwilling to frankly avow 
it to me ? 

I resolved to follow Leon’s advice and insist upon 
her speaking out. Circumstances favored me a few 
hours later. 

The four orphaned grandchildren of the old peo- 
ple were a wild, spoiled set, whom Julia had scarcely 
succeeded yet in disciplining into obedience, though 
she had won their childish affection from the start. 
Yery shy of me at first, they gradually made me 
their friend and playmate. Poor, deformed little 
I^inette was especially drawn to me ; so much had 
she suffered from the pains of her misshapen limbs 
that her sympathies were actively stirred in behalf 
of any one else who had endured pain. She would 
sit on my knee and make me describe to her over 
and over the scenes in the l^atchez hospital, my 
weary sickness in the yellow-fever time, the burning 
of the steamboat, the horrid sights and sounds at- 
tending it, and my sensations upon being dragged 
down into the swift waters. Then she would stroke 
my hair and softly whisper in my ear, “ Oh, pauvre 
Jiomme — why does the good Dieu make us suffer 
so r 

At twilight of that evening I saw Julia and her 
pupils walking in the garden. I joined them, and 
was noisily welcomed by the children. As the night 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


189 


advanced they were gently dismissed, one by one, to 
their chambers, each receiving the coveted kiss from 
the governess. Ninette lingered till the last, and 
was loath to go. The black domestic stood waiting 
to carry her in, but she clung to Julia. 

“ There ; good-night, Nina,” said the latter. 
‘‘You shall come to me when you wake in the 
morning.” 

“Just a little minute, dear Ma’m’selle! I want 
to ask you a question.” 

“ Well, Ninon T 

“ Why does God let me suffer ?” 

The woman’s dark eyes swiftly sought my face. 

“ I cannot tell you, child. We must believe it is 
for the best.” 

“ No ; I won’t believe that ! God is good, is He 
not ?” 

“ Yes ; He is our Infinite Father.” 

“Yet He makes me .suffer; and poor M. Han- 
chett, too. It is not kind of God to do that. You 
are kind to me, Ma’m’selle, are you not ?” 

“ I try to be, Ninon.” 

“ Ought we not to be kind to all that are af- 
flicted ?” 

“ Yes, 

“ Shouldn’t we be kind to poor M. Hanchett ?” 

“ Of course ; but how your tongue does run on, 
to-night !” 

“ Won’t you be kind to him ?” 

In the faint glow of the twilight I saw a deeper 
damask stealing over Julia’s cheek. The child’s 
random tongue had touched the old chord. 


190 


A MODEUN MinACZE. 


‘‘You’re a very silly little Frenchwoman,” she 
playfully replied. “ There — there’s your kiss ! l^ow 
let Gassy take you away.” 

But the child clung to her neck. Her wayward 
spirit demanded an answer. 

“ I won’t go till you tell me,” she insisted. “ "Will 
you be kind to poor M. Hanchett ?” 

“ Yes,” was the low-voiced answer. 

Child and attendant were gone. Julia and I sat 
upon the same rustic seat. She was strangely calm ; 
but in my breast hope and fear battled together, 
and my tongue at first refused me utterance. 

I heard a step ; Leon Gardette stood near. Dis- 
covering us, he turned and disappeared. 


A miracle. 


191 , 


CHAPTEE XIY. 

HEART WRESTLES WITH HEART. 

I T IS TIME,” began Julia Beinent, “that you 
were undeceived. For weeks I have seen with 
pain that you would still pursue me with the offer 
of a love that I once rejected forever. I have much 
to say to you ; but this it is better to understand at 
the start. The answer that I gave you at Montville 
I now repeat. Xever can I give you another. 
‘You must take your way alone ; I cannot walk it 
with you.’ ” 

Her voice was firm ; in the fading light I could 
not see her face. 

“ This is worse than mockery ; it is cruelty !” was 
my 'fierce protest. “Why have you brought me 
here, putting me in a situation where I must be near 
you each day, and thus fed the flame of the passion 
that has wrecked my life ? — why have you done it, 
knowing that you meant to craze me at the end 
with the heartless words you have just uttered? 
Woman, tell me — why have you done it ?” 

I seized her hand ; she uttered a cry that was like 
terror at my savage words and rude act. I heard 
hasty footsteps approaching, and Leon Gardette was 
there again. 

“Did I hear you scream. Miss Bement?” he 


192 


A MIRACLE, 


asked, with a menace in his voice that was meant 
for me. 

“JSTo — it was nothing — only an insect on my 
neck,” was the reply. Please wait till I am in 
real danger, Mr. Gardette, before you become my 
champion.” 

She tried to say it laughingly. He slowly retired. 

“You see you must be calm,” she resumed, “if 
you would talk with me. I have had reasons for all 
that I have done toward you. I have waited for 
this interview until your strength has returned ; now 
it shall be no longer put off, painful as it will be. 
But once for all, sir — I use not your own name, be- 
cause you wish never to hear it again — once for all, 
blame me not for your wrecked life, for the conse- 
quences of your headstrong passion. I warned you 
in time ; I bade you leave me forever ; if I was weak 
enough to be surprised by your vehemence into a 
confession that I loved you — the only act of my life 
that shames me ! — I told you in the same breath 
that such a love would be as vain and as wicked on 
my part as on yours, and I fled from you. Not 
once, but twice! At Wycaseo I read in the news- 
papers the accounts of your .tragic death at New 
York, and I accepted the flrst offer that would take 
me far from that place. As well as I could I pro- 
vided for secrecy, trying to cover the goal of my 
new flight so that you would not find me.” 

“ You talk in riddles,” I impatiently said. “What 
reason had you to think I could find you, if you be- 
lieved me dead ? Did you expect to be haunted ?” 

“ I did not believe you dead ! Perhaps I am the 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


193 


only one whom you never duped by that stupendous 
fraud. Knowing you so well, having listened to 
your mad avowals, I saw artifice and deception 
where others saw only a horrible death. How it 
was contrived I know not, and do not care to know ; 
but the truth, the shocking, amazing truth, I divined 
from the first.’’ 

She astonished me with this declaration. It at 
once cleared up much that had puzzled me in her 
conduct. 

“You guessed it, then,” 1 said, “before you re- 
ceived Hunt’s letter ?” 

“ I did ; that letter only confirmed my opinion. I 
saw your hand at once in the offer of money, and 
I sent that letter back, indignantly declining the 
offer. Man, you little know me, if you thought 
you could make me a partner in a conspiracy — an 
odious, monstrous deceit !” 

I was abashed^ and silent. My doom seemed 
plain enough now; but I resolved to assail her 
heart at the proper time. She went on, with rising 
spirit : 

“You have charged me with cruelty in causing 
you to be brought here, knowing what the end 
would be. Listen ! When I saw you struggling 
with disease in the hospital, I pitied you ; because I 
pitied you, I wished to be kind to you, as poor 
Hinon just asked me to be. I could not visit you 
alone, but all that I could do for your comfort when 
you were recovering I did. Of course, it was I 
who caused infiuence to be used wdth the authori- 
ties to send you back to St. Louis ; I caused that for- 


194 


A MIRACLE. 


bidding letter to be written to you, when you again 
tried to communicate wdth me ; I bluntly refused to 
recognize you on the boat at Vicksburg. All this 
I hoped would discourage and dishearten you; I 
trusted never to see you or to hear from you again.” 

‘‘ But you changed your mind,” I interrupted. 

“Yes; you shall know why. Hearing that you 
were again nigh to death through the disaster of the 
Crescent Belle, I pitied you as before ; I took care 
that everything possible should be done for you ; I 
might then have visited you at the hospital, but 
never would have caused you to be brought here 
out of pity and kindness only. I had another ob- 
ject; the time has come for me to disclose it. J 
have a duty to perform toward you.” 

“ A duty ?” I echoed, somewhat awed by the so- 
lemnity of her voice and words. 

“Yes, a duty. I bid you retrace your steps. It 
is not too late; that way alone lies your safety. 
Go ” 

“Ho — never!” I cried. “Do not seek to move 
me in that way. My course was deliberately 
chosen ; it is too late now to go back, even if I wish 
to do so. You are the arbiter of my fate; accept 
my love, my unswerving devotion, and you will fill 
me with new life and hope. There is ability in me 
yet; it only needs the incitement of your smile. 
With that I can go abroad with you — to Europe or 
South America. I can toil for the money to take 
us there. Under the name of Edward Hanchett I 
can gain wealth, and we can live as we please. 
Turn away from me now, and ” 


A MODEllN MIRAOLK 


195 


What then ?” she calmly asked. 

‘^For3^ou — I know not what! You may inter- 
pret your own heart and answer what will be be- 
fore you, till the tomb shall mercifully receive you. 
As for myself, the question is not hard to answer. 
There w411 be before me despair — the grasping of 
the first desperate venture that comes my way, and 
then — welcome death F 

Through the gathering gloom of the night I 
heard a sound that thrilled me through. It was 
her sob 1 

I reached oul for her hand in the dark ; she did not 
refuse it now. Nay, as I held it, a tear from an 
invisible fount fell upon it. 

“ The woman is always weak,’’ she passionately 
exclaimed as she drew her hand away. “ Always 
weak where she should be strong, and yielding 
where she should be stern. Let me tell you, sir, 
you have not beguiled me from the duty I had as- 
sumed. I will put it to you plainly : You have 
sinned deeply, but not irreparably. Go back; ac- 
knowledge your error ; call your conscience to your 
help, summon your strength, and resume the life 
you have thrown awa.}^” 

“And is this what you would say to me ? Is it 
for this that you have raised me to the height of ex- 
pectant happiness, only to dash me down to hell 
again 

“It is for this that I had you brought here. 
Think — consider! God’s warning, speaks to you 
above my weak voice ; twice, lately, have you lain 
at death’s door and have been brought back to life. 


196 


A MODEBN MIRACLE. 


Can you not see in this the outstretched hand of 
Providence ? I am a woman, but I bow in fear and 
trembling before such manifestations as these. I 
implore you to heed them.” 

I answered her with an impatient exclamation. 

“ You will not listen ?” she said, warming with her 
emotions. If you are deaf to me now, then may 
God help you ! — you will be lost forever. Think of 

the wife you have deserted ” 

She is far better off without me.” 

“Think of what may happen; nay, of what is 
sure to happen, should you leave this hideous decep- 
tion stand, and keep yourself buried under a false 
name somewhere. As time passes, Weldon Hunt 
will woo and win your wife ; he will marry her ; 
they will innocently enter into a bond which the 
law cannot sanction. Are you willing to allow your 
wife to commit bigamy, even innocently ?” 

“I am perfectly indifferent about it,” was my an- 
swer. “Since Georgia Gorman’s husband is dead 
and buried, I care not how soon she remarries, or 
whom she makes her new husband. Why should I 
care? Hever quote the law to me; the law unites 
hands, but it cannot unite hearts. I tell you plainly, 
my past life is absolutely closed and sealed. 
Whether I am to have a new one, or only to lan- 
guish in the dregs of existence, depends upon you. 
Assuring you that I will never resume my former 
name, never go back and acknowledge myself a co- 
lossal cheat and liar, I think I am safe in believing 
that you will not betray me to Georgia or to Hunt. 
I am willing that they should be happy in their own 


A MODERN MIRAOLE. 10 ? 

way ; but, as you will see, their happiness depends 
upon your silence.” 

She wrung her hands 

I must be Silent ; I could never blast the happi- 
ness of a sister-woman, when I might secure it by 
silence. But — oh, God ! — how monstrous ! What a 
hideous secret for me to keep! Man! be moved. 
Do not put this dreadful burden upon me, with all 
else that you make me bear. Have mercy upon me 
— upon Georgia — and go back !” 

She never once stirred me with her pleading, 
have decided, Julia,” was my reply. ^‘You 
have heard me; there is nothing further to be said. 
More than man ever gave up for woman I have 
sacrificed for you. In your hands is the decision ; 
you can ban or bless me. Which shall it be ?” 

Her sad, low sobbing came to my ear. She. rose 
from the seat. 

“I am weary,” she said, tremulously. “I cannot 
talk longer with you. Let me go.” 

‘‘But this will not be the end? You will see me 
to-morrow ?” 

“Oh, why should you wish it? Have I not 
spoken ?” 

“Julia Bement, you never have known my heart. 
Give me the chance, and I will make you know it. 
May I talk with you again to-morrow night — in this 
place ?” 

We stood face to face in the dark. I could not 
see her; I could not mark the emotions of her 
countenance, but I could feel the fluttering and 
trembling of the hand that she voluntarily gave me. 


198 


A MIRACLE. 


“I will,” she said, ‘ u you wish it. [NTow let us 
part in friendship and peace. I have done my best ; 
I cannot turn you from your mad way ; I leave you 
with God. May He be merciful to you — and to 
yours !” 

I might have been presumptuous enough to offer 
to kiss her ; but she eluded my embrace and glided 
swiftly from me. Hot until another day did I 
realize the deep significance of her words, the 
mournful prophec}^ that was in them. 

Following her immediately, I saw her joined by 
Leon Gardette near the back veranda. We all 
passed a pleasant evening with the old people, and 
. soothing music speeded the hours. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


199 


CHAPTER XY. 

A STUNNING DISCLOSUEE. 

E ADJOHRXED to the parlor. Monsieur 



V V and Madame, happy in the apparent happi- 
ness of those about them, smiled, nodded, applauded 
the vocal and instrumental efforts at entertainment, 
and frequently resorted to pure French for expres- 
sions of approbation and satisfaction. Julia con- 
versed lightly — with an effort, I thought — and when 
asked by Leon Gardette, did not refuse to go to the 
piano, and in her rich contralto voice rendered some 
of the solos from the popular operas of the day. 
Gardette followed with his guitar, and to his own 
accompaniment sang some French songs, in which 
the frequent repetition of the words 
showed their character. I had nothing to contribute 
to the evening’s enjoyment ; nothing but a moodi- 
ness arising from a bitter sense of defeat. But 
Madame treated me as airily as though I had been 
the most exuberant member of the circle. 

“ Monsieur Hanchett is recovering his good health 
so fast,” she chirped, that he ought not to be dull. 
Can he not sing? — play? — can he do nothing to 
amuse us ? Come, M’sieur— you are challenged.” 

I made my excuse as best I might ; and presently, 
to my relief, the time for retiring came. A hurried 
whisper I was able to send to Julia’s ear, 


200 


A MIRACLE. 


“Do not forget that you promised to hear me 
again to-morrow night.” 

“I do not forget,” she answered in the same tone ; 
and then she spoke aloud. “Good rest, sweet 
dreams, heaven’s peace to 3mu all, fair friends !” she 
said, with that smile which had entranced me dong 
before, and she vanished up the broad- stair. 

Did I see aright? Was it on me that her glorious 
eyes rested last, with tender sorrow, with pitying 
look? Ah, God— that look was indelibly stamped 
upon my brain ; I remember it now, for I never 
saw her more ! h[ever — never more ! 


I arose next morning from a sleepless bed, dressed 
myself, and walked in the garden. On the bench 
where Julia and I had sat a ribbon had fallen from 
her hair ; I pressed it to my lips and carefully put 
it away in my pocket. Sitting where, in the gloom 
of that evening which was to be forever memorable 
in my strange history, she had wrung my heart, I 
asked myself. What hope is left ? There was one, 
a frail one ; but I clung to it desperately. She had 
not commanded me to ,go away ; she had even en- 
gaged to hear me again on the evening of this pres- 
ent day. As we easily believe what we wish to be- 
lieve, I took heart at the reflection. Strong and 
positive as her expressions had been, yet this consent 
seemed to show a hesitation, as though her mind was 
not yet fully made up. 

Presently Leon Gardette joined me. He was 
suave and smiling, and began with an apology. 

“ I trust I did not intrude upon you and Ma’m’- 


A Modern miracle. ^oi 

selle last night,” he said/ “ I did not intend it, and 
beg a thousand pardons if I offended.” 

There was no offense. Monsieur ' Leon,” I has- 
tened to say.. 

Thank you. It relieves me to know it. You 
are early up, for one who has so lately been an in- 
valid. Your eyes look hollow. What is the mat- 
ter ?” 

‘‘ I did not sleep well.” 

‘‘You need the bracing of exercise. I have not 
given you any for three days. What say you to a 
gallop after breakfast ?” 

I consented, and we returned to the house, chat- 
ting on indifferent subjects. Always blithe and 
buoyant as I had known him, his spirits upon this 
morning were unusually elastic. Julia did not ap- 
pear at the table, and Madame, kindly solicitous, dis- 
patched a servant to see if she were ill. The girl 
came back, reporting that Ma’m’selle had a head- 
ache and begged to be excused. 

“Ah, it is you gallant gentlemen that are to 
blame !” said the old lady, shaking her finger at us. 
“Monsieur Ilanchett must keep her out in the gar- 
den in the dew ; and you, enfant Leon, like a thought- 
less boy, must urge her to sing and play till the 
good, kind creature is exhausted. I shall look to it 
that she is better taken care of.” 

“ Monsieur Llanchett does not take good care of 
himself,” said Leon, as he sipped his coffee. “He 
has confessed to me that he passed a bad night, and 
he has promised to take another equestrian tonic 
with me.” 


202 


A i¥Oi)^W MIRACLE. 


‘‘That is ’well,” the old gentleman remarked. 
“ But not too much exercise for him, mind ! Do not 
make him ride far.” 

“ Only a few miles,” returned the son, carelessly. 

In an hour two spirited horses, well equipped, were 
at the door, with a third, ridden by the black groom 
who always attended us on our rides. As we were 
about to mount, a small uproar inside was heard, 
and little Ninette came limping out, convulsed with 
tears and sobs. 

“ Where do you go, M’sieu’ Hanchett ?” she cried. 
“ Are you going to leave us ?” 

“No, child ; only for a short ride. What troubles 
you so ?” 

She gave a fresh burst of Aveeping. 

“You heard dear Ma’m’selle tell me last night 
that I might come to her early this morning ; but 
Cassy will not let me ; she says Mahn’selle is sick. 
I came to tell you, and you are going away. It 
makes me sick, too ; I want somebody to be mry 
kind to me.” 

I soothed the poor little creature, promising to 
return soon, bring her a small present, and tell her 
a story. I looked back as we reached the road. My 
last sight of the Gardette mansion gave me a pict- 
ure of -the child leaning on her crutch and gazing 
wistfully after me, wdiile Madame waved her hand- 
kerchief from a window. 

We galloped on side by side for a few moments 
in silence, my companion choosing the way. Pres- 
ently I inquired : 

“ Is not this the road to Natchez ?” 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


,203 


^‘Yes,” he answered. ' “A pleasant road, too. 
Over and back makes a good ride.” 

Nothing either, in his manner or speech had im- 
pressed me with the idea that anything unusual was 
about to occur ; nor did it seem at all extraordinary, af- 
ter we had ridden through the streets, and reached the 
park along the brow of the hill, that he should pro- 
pose to dismount and rest. He directed the servant 
to lead our horses away a little ; then he threw him- 
self down on the greensward, produced some cigars, 
-and burst into a rhapsody of talk. 

“ Come, now, M’seur, lie here at your ease with 
me, and let us do absolutely nothing for half an 
hour; nothing but to talk and dream. Do you 
know what the rapture of idling is ? — loafing is the 
English word, which perhaps expresses the idea 
much better "VVhat a glorious panorama we have 
in yonder long stretch of our great, wide river, with 
its craft passing up and down ! Nature does noth- 
ing by halves, here in America ; everything is on a 
grand scale. Have you traveled in Europe, mon 
ami? No? Well, I’ll tell you that it would* be 
hard to match that immense stream over there. 
The Khine, of course, is more picturesque and his- 
toric, the Khone and the Moselle are more beautiful, 
the Danube has a savage grandeur of its own, the 
Thames — faugh ! — the Thames is but the receiving- 
sewer of London. None of them have the sweep, 
the amazing volume of water that you see yonder, 
in your not misnamed Father of Waters. And, by 
the way, since you leave us to-day, which direction 
will you take — up or down ? New Orleans or St. 


204 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


Louis? You can catch a steamer here for either 
place before noon.” 

1 regarded him with speechless astonishment. A 
sickening suspicion made me faint. He glanced at 
me coolly, with a look of semi-defiance, I thought, 
between his cigar-puffs. 

You seem surprised,” he continued. I can un- 
derstand why you might be. I have been playing a 
part during the last month in my relations with 
you ; it has not been an agreeable business for me, 
but strange circumstances have made it necessary. 
You are a person, M’sieur, who creates surprising, 
situations wherever he goes, and who makes a ne- 
cessity for unusual defensive measures against him. 
You shall hear all I have to communicate before 
bidding you a farewell, which must positively be a 
final one ; but it will be well to advise you plainly, 
to begin with, that, as against so accomplished an 
intriguer as M. Edward Ilanchett^ no ordinary 
weapons could be depended upon.” 

The cool irony of his manner and language, and 
the marked emphasis that he placed upon the name 
I had assumed, stung me. In that moment the 
humiliating thought came to me that I was not only 
defeated, but duped. He went straight on with his 
talk while I was collecting myself for the questions 
that pressed me. 

“I may admit, M’sieur, that this enforced and 
somewhat abrupt style of departure is not consonant 
with the well-known standards of Southern hospital- 
ity ; nor is it agreeable to the social customs of La 
Belle France^ where I was educated. Indeed, my 


A MODEHN MIRACLE. 


205 


respected father and mother will have some difficulty 
in comprehending the explanation that 1 must give 
them, to justify myself in not bringing you back 
with me ; and as for those affectionate little imps, 
my nieces, especially poor Ninon, who have become 
attached to you — reall}^. Monsieur — may the devil 
take the whole business ! I have been trying to 
send you away with a laugh and a jest ; but it won’t 
do. It is a painful, a distressing affair, and I ask 
you not to make it more annoying to me than is 
necessary.” 

His light manner suddenly changed with the last 
words ; he sat up, bit his cigar in two, threw away 
the pieces, and gave me a hard stare. 

‘‘Do jou know my story?” I demanded, seizing at 
random a point of beginning- with him. 

“ Yes.” 

“All of it?” 

“ The whole. It became necessary that I should 
be told, as the counterplot to meet your plot was 
formed. I was informed of it nearly as long ago as 
the date of my answer to the letter that you wrote 
from St. Louis to — to a lady of my father’s house- 
hold.” 

“ And s/ie told you ?” 

“ Of course. What else could she do ? In some 
way she must needs protect herself from your im- 
portunities ; to that end she must have a confidant. 
I had the honor to be chosen.” 

“ Cruel, false woman I” I groaned. 

Leon Gardette’s eyes glittered. 

“ Monsieur forgets himself,” he said, trying hard 


206 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


to keep his temper. “Let me say to you that the 
lady told me your well-nigh incredible story under 
a solemn pledge of secrecy. That pledge I shall as 
sacredly observe, no matter how much you provoke 
me. Indeed, my parents shall never know the re- 
volting truth ; I will do my best to convince them 
that you left me here to-day to save the distress and 
pain of a formal parting by and by. Please remem- 
ber all this, M’sieur, and try to restrain your tongue. 
You, who so little deserve it, have been treated with 
rare consideration. It little becomes you,, remem- 
bering the past that is behind you, to use the words 
‘cruel, false woman’ toward 

I became furious under his just reproof. 

“You have no right to make yourself the cham- 
pion of Julia Bement,” I cried. “She gave you a 
hint to that effect last night. You are nothing at 
all to her. IS'or will I leave these parts until I see 
her again. I have an appointment to meet her this 
very night.” 

His eyes shone with triumph as he heard me. 
Ilis time had come ! 

“ Ah, Monsieur, undeceive yourself. The lady does 
not wish to meet you again ; she knows that you 
have left the Gardette mansion forever, and she is 
relieved by the knowledge. As for becoming her 
champion— you will admit that I am the proper per- 
son, when you learn the truth. Be calm as you can, 
M'sieur, while I tell you that — she whom you call 
Julia Bement is my wife!” 


207 


•• A MIRACLW. 


CHAPTER XYI. 

OUTCAST ! 

I RAGED witli passion as I heard that astound- 
ing declaration. I sprung up and glared upon 
him. 

It is a lie !” I shouted. “ A base, vile falsehood.” 
His cheek reddened, but he kept his temper. 
‘^Monsieur Hanchett,” he quietly replied, “ac* 
cording to the military code of honor with which I 
am familiar, and with which you should be familiar, 
the words you have- just permitted yourself to use 
would call for the blood of one of us. But I pass by 
the insult. I remember that you have, or think you 
have, provocation for them ; I recall the miserable 
condition in which you hav^ placed yourself. More- 
over, you must know that I am bound by the most 
solemn promise to her — to my wife — not to injure 
you. For her sake, I endure such an insult as I 
never submitted to before from mortal man. Yet, I 
can hardly call it an insult ; you are beside yourself 
with rage and disappointment. Miserable man ! I 
pity you. For her sake I have borne with you, pre- 
tended that I did not understand your attitude to- 
ward her, and restrained myself, seeing you near her, 
when I could have struck you dead, knowing your 
base efforts to win her away from honor and duty ; 
and she my wife !” 


208 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


His words sounded meaningless in my ears. I 
could not get beyond the dread fact that he had 
stated. 

“Your wife?'’ I feebly questioned. “Julia 
wife — your wedded wife ? Ho ; I will not believe 
it! You are deceiving me. I will return to the 
mansion, and have my appointed interview with her 
to-night.” 

“ I did not hope to convince you out of my own 
mouth of the truth of what you have heard,” he 
quietly rejoined. “ I foresaw that it might be neces- 
sary to provide myself with a witness that could not 
be gainsaid. Look at thatl^ 

He took from his vest-pocket a little roll of paper 
and tossed it to me. I read the confirmation of his 
words in her own handwriting : 

To E. G .: — After our meeting of last night, I 
feel that everything must end at once between us. 
Again I tell you, that, at the risk of being miscon- 
strued by you, I have only been laboring to bring 
you to a sense of your folly and sin;, to persuade 
you to retrace your steps. You will not; you are 
possessed of a blind infatuation. I will not see you 
again; it can tend to no good. My husband will 
deliver you this. Farewell forever ! Your wretched 
secret shall be kept. Julia Gaedette. 

I crushed the paper in my hand and fell upon the 
grass. My companion sprung to my assistance ; I 
repulsed him. 

“ You are overcome,” he said. “You cannot bear 
to hear more.” 

“ I have heard the worst ; the details are of small 


A Mob URN MIRAGLR. 


m 


account. But tell it all ; let the whole agony be 
revealed — and I will bear it, or die' here. Go on.” 

‘‘She became my wife at Vicksburg, last July. 
You were on the boat, it seems, when we came 
aboard, on our return home. The marriage has 
been kept secret since ; it is told to you first. There 
were reasons why it could not be made public.” 

“ Some spell was on her,” I wildly protested. 
“ She never loved you ; she never can.” 

His cheek paled. I saw that. I had touched him. 

“ As to that,” he fiercely replied, “ J will discuss 
with no man whether the woman who has sworn to 
love, honor and obey me, loves me or does not love 
me. Least of all will I discuss it with you. She is 
my wife, loyal and true to me. She has striven 
with all the fervor of a noble woman to restore you 
to your own wife, and to the grand position and 
opportunities that you have thrown away. Abso- 
lutely blameless as she has ever been, she has keenly 
felt the inward reproach that your astonishing fall 
was due to your untempered passion for her. She 
felt that, in honor and conscience, she must try to 
win you back to yourself and to your better nature. 
Well, she has made the trial; she has compelled me 
to be a restive and unwilling helper in the scheme. 
It has failed. I love her better than ever, for the 
great heart that could devise such a plan. And let 
no man say that she does not love me ! You, who 
have madly risked everything for her, and failed, 
know that she is not the woman to wed where she 
cannot love.” 

“Your wife!” I repeated, half-dazed. “Still, I 


^10 


A MOBEUn MIRACLE. 


cannot comprehend it. You say it has been kept 
secret. ITow was it ? — why was it 

‘‘ Ah ! it makes a story by itself !” He de- 
liberately bit another cigar, and lay at half-length 
while he smoked, and briskly talked. ‘‘ I told you 
that you should know all, now; you shall. You 
have heard, I suppose, how I accidentally met her at 
Wycaseo last spring ? Well, it appears, from the 
story she told me, that you loved her at first sight, 
having no right to do so. I saw her there, and 
loved her, being free to wdn her if I could. And I 
said to myself then, ‘ If I do not marry that woman, 
I never shall marry at all.’ 

Her anxiety to leave Wycaseo, for a reason that 
I could not then know, was made known to me ; I 
succeeded in bringing her to my father’s house as 
governess. All were charmed with her; my passion 
grew stronger Avith each day. I made myself agree- 
able to her from the first. I Avas hopeful that time 
Avould make her mine; yet it might have been a 
year, two or three, perhaps, before I would have 
dared to urge my suit to that grand Avoman — but 
for you.’’^ 

“For me?” I echoed. “What had I to do AAuth 
it ?” 

“Very much, as you shall hear. From the first 
day of my acquaintance with her at Wycaseo I saw 
that she Avas living under a shadow. Hot to others, 
but to me, the fact became very plain after she was 
installed in our home as governess. I marked her 
swift look of inquiry Avhen strangers Avere intro- 
duced ; I saw her nervous start when letters were 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


211 


brought her. She had not beealong with us when 
one came to her, forwarded from Wycaseo. I saw 
the original post-mark ; it was Montville, IST. Y. She 
was agitated by it, and kept her chamber for half a 
day after receiving it. _ 

“ Later, I drove over to Natchez, one day, with her 
and Madame. We happened to go into the hospital 
while there; my dear mother is ever full of sympa- 
thy for the unfortunate, and never goes to the city 
without a large gift of fruit and flowers for the hos- 
pital. In one of the cots we saw you. 

bad case,’ the doctor told us; ^a Northern 
man taken down with the yellow fever. There are 
ninety-nine chances out of a hundred against him ; 
yet he may pull through.’ 

‘‘Julia started and turned pale when she saw you. 
As we drove home, Madame slept soundly, from fa- 
tigue and heat. Then Julia conflded in me just a 
little. She told me that the yellow-fever patient we 
had seen was a man wllo was cruelly persecuting 
her, and that he had probably come here for that 
purpose. She begged me to quietly have him sent 
away when he became convalescent. 

“ I promised, unquestioningly ; I would have done 
anything that she could require. You were sent up. 
to St. Louis, M. Hanchett ; and I may tell you that 
the letter which you sent to her from the Natchez 
hospital hastened your departure. 

“ Next came your letter from St. Lduis. She 
brought it to me in tears, telling me how it should 
be answered. I silently complied, holding my peace, 
certain that the agitation of mind that you were in- 


212 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


flicting upon her by these approaches would soon 
cause her to reveal everything to me. 

“ So it was. One day I found her alone, sad and 
despondent. I saw my opportunity ; I urged her to 
confide fully in me, promising to help her. She was 
irresolute ; I persisted. As I grew bolder I laid my 
heart at her feet. She hurriedly left me upon this 
declaration ; but, two days after, I found an o^Dpor- 
tunity to renew it. 

“And she consented! Tell me not that she did 
not love me; why, else, would she have made me 
supremely happy ? 

“She told me all; with her hands in mine she 
told me all. The revelation appalled me for an in- 
stant; but soon, in passionate words, I dedicated 
my life to her. 

“‘I must be saved from him,’ she said with a 
shudder. ^ I wish he could be saved to himself and 
his wife, and the career he has thrown away ; but, 
first, I must be saved from* him 1 He is dreadful in 
his resolution ; I know him well. He will stop at 
nothing to find me, to compel me to yield to his un- 
lawful persuasions. I want to be protected from 
him.’ 

“You have already conceived what followed. I 
urged her to give me a husband’s right to protect 
her; I obtained her consent. A necessary errand 
to Yicksburg was fabricated for her ; I escorted her 
there ; she came back as my wife, unknown to the 
others of the housefk)ld. 

“ I had not time to smooth matters with my 
parents; Julia’s need of a protector was urgent, and 


A MIRACLE. 


213 


with that accomplislied we could wait a favorable 
opportunity to placate Monsieur and Madame. My 
mother, I knew, had lodked for a high alliance for 
me; much as she loved Julia, time would be re- 
quired to reconcile her to the idea that her only son 
should wed the governess. But only a little more 
time will open the way for her approval; I am cer- 
tain of it. With you removed as a disturbing ele- 
ment, life ought to flow on happily with us. 

‘‘What more shall I say? Hard as I labored 
against Julia’s resolution to have you brought to the 
house in your convalescence, I was compelled to sub- 
mit. Man ! did ever woman act more nobly ? Think 
of it ! Prevailing against her husband, insisting on 
taking the enemy of her peace beneath the roof that 
sheltered her, that he might be not only nursed to 
life, but that he might, if possible, be redeemed from 
the demon within him ! Monsieur, you are defeat- 
ed ; 3^ou are utterly cast down ; yet can you not 
admire the loftiness of the soul of her who, refusing 
to love you when you had no right to be loved, yet 
tried so hard to save you ? Oh, it is grand ; there is 
no woman like my Julia !” 

I turned wearily and impatiently from him. I 
bent my head upon my breast ; in the words of a 
great sinner I cried out to myself, “ My punishment 
is greater than I can bear !” 

For a few minutes Leon Gardette considerately 
left me to my misery. Then he put a hand on my 
shoulder. 

“ My friend, I don’t judge you,” he said with kind- 
ness. “Circumstances make and unmake us all. 


214 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


You are av retched ; I am blest; a Amry little, per- 
haps, might haA^e reA^ersed our positions. I pity 
you ; God knoAA^s how I pity you, AAdthout judging. 
Don’t think hard of me ; in better days, under other 
circumstances, AAm tAVO AA^ould haA^e been fa^t friends. 
As I bid you farewell forever, let me take you by 
the hand.” 

I shook my head and turned sullenly aAvay. 

At least,” he urged, with overflowing kindness 
in his A^oice, “ you Avon’t refuse one gift at parting. 
Whatever your life may be from this time out, it 
Avill be a new life ; there Avill be nothing in the past 
that you can turn to for aid if you Avish to do so. 
Have 1 not established the right to help you from 
my abundance, by reason of all that has occurred ? 
Here in this ' pocket-book are five hundred dollars ; 
you can do me no greater favor than to accept it.” 

I refused Avith a surly gesture. I heard his soft 
FareAA^ell, mon and then the sound of the 

horses’ gallop dying away in the distance. I looked 
around ; as he disappeared from my sight I saAV him 
Avave his hand to me. 

Then came the crowning humiliation. Stripped 
of everything, bankrupt in all that men hold dear, I 
Avas going out into the world to make a futile strug- 
gle until it crushed me. The_pocket-book which my 
hand refused had fallen at my feet ; I took it up and 
put it away. Then I Avent down to the landing to 
Avait for the Yew Orleans boat. 


A MODERir MIRACLE, 


215 


CHAPTEK XYII. 

IN THE LAVA-BEDS. 

I T WAS in November, 1872, under a sullen, rainy 
sky, that four companies of United States in- 
fantry made their bivouac in the Klamath country 
of Oregon. They were on the edge of the lava-beds. 
That vast desolation of rocks and pits, of deep 
chasms and frowning natural barriers, the remains 
of the volcanic eruptions of old ages, stretched out 
before them; and in these impregnable recesses 
were hidden and sheltered the cruel, crafty foe that 
these soldiers had been sent to conquer. I was one 
of this detachment. 

From the time of my parting with Leon Gardette 
my course had been steadily downward; It was 
bound to be so. . Cut off from hope, the past was a 
blank, the future offered nothing but weariness. 
Times there were, indeed, when I tried to take heart 
of hope ; when, in an hour of exhilaration, I planned 
various large careers of adventurous daring in all 
quarters of the globe. I would go to Africa, and in 
its barbarous wilds surpass the discoveries of this 
century and the last. I would join one of the Arctic 
expeditions. There might be a field for me in Egypt 
or Turkey, the resorts of soldiers of fortune from 
the entire civilized world. These were but a few of 
the vain and hopeless schemes that I planned in 


A MODmS MIRAGLZ 


those days, to give me another hold on life and 
action. Yain — oh, how vain! The shadow of the 
dreadful past — the utter ruin that I had in a few 
brief months wrought for myself — was ever upon me, 
numbing me into a lethargy of soul. In my mock- 
ing humor, on leaving New York, I had said to my- 
self, ‘‘You are dead!” Now, when I endeavored to 
plan a new existence, the demon who chuckles over 
the lost was industriously whispering in my ear, 
“Eemember that you are dead ! You are dead to 
all men and women who ever knew you ; dead to 
life, to hope, to love, to honor ; dead to yourself !” 

So for the next eighteen months I drifted aim- 
lessly about the cities of the great river, living a life 
that is now a blank to me — as it had better be. 
"When my money was exhausted, I went to a re- 
cruiting-office and enlisted for five years as a private 
soldier. 

Men who have worn eagles upon their shoulders 
and led battalions in war had come to that before 
me, but never, I thought, through such dark and 
devious roads as mine ! 

Four and a half years I had been serving at 
various frontier posts, scrupulously doing my duty, 
always known to my officers as a good soldier, but a 
morose, crabbed kind of a fellow. On several occa- 
sions that I recall, I was required to report to offi- 
cers who had come to their present positions from 
the great volunteer armies of 1861-65; more than 
once I recognized, in the man whom I respectfully 
saluted, one whom I had commanded in those days 
More than once, too, I observed a start and a close 


A MODER]}^ MIRACLE. 


217 


look of inquiry, as' something in my face carried the 
thoughts of my superior back to the stirring times 
of the war. But my life-secret was safe ; I was too 
much changed by disappointment and suffering to 
fear recognition ; I had been too long buried ever to 
be resurrected in this world. 

Still, these chance collisions, these reminders of 
something that I had been, wmre dramatically 
awakening to me. They stalked suddenly before 
me like the ghosts of my dead self; their voices were 
to me as the feeble shriek of the man overboard in 
the raging Atlantic, appealing for the rescue that 
never can reach him. They hardly pained me ; time 
and renewed agonies of mind had dulled the edge of 
suffering; but they never failed to penetrate the 
shell in which I had sheathed myself from the 
world, and awaken memory. I believe it was at the 
commandant’s headquarters at Fort Dodge, in the 
winter of 1870, that I overheard the following con- 
versation between the Colonel and my Captain. 

Captain Stubbs, who is that fellow there at the 
desk, that I had detailed from your company for a 
clerk ?” 

‘‘Private Hanchett. A very good soldier, sir, 
though an odd kind of fellow ; never has anything to 
say, more than is necessary. He must have had, 
some advantages ; Avrites a good hand, and is quick 
Avith the pen.” 

“Yes, all that I haA^e learned since Pve had him 
here. But who the devil is he, anyAvay ?” 

“Well, sir, all I knoAV of him is, that he Avas sent 
to us about tAvo years ago from the New Orleans 


218 


A IfODBRJV' MIRACLE. 


recruiting-station. There was- a pretty bad record 
came with him ; the police there knew him as a 
gambler, and by spells a heavy drinker. I heard 
that it was after a long debauch that he enlisted. 
But since he’s been with us, there has not been 
charge or complaint against him.” 

“Don’t you know anything of him back of the 
time you speak of ?” 

“ Nothing, sir.” 

The Colonel whistled and drummed on the arm of 
his chair. 

“ Captain Stubbs, call him in here,” he said. 

I appeared in the commandant’s office, assumed 
the “position of a soldier,” and saluted. My hair 
was cropped short ; my face clean shaven ; I wore the 
])lain dark-blue blouse and light-blue trousers of the 
private soldier. The glass showed me, when I cared 
to look into it, that my head was grayed in a ring all 
about the lower part, and in patches on top ; that 
my eyes were sunk and hollow ; my cheeks seamed 
with wrinkles. And yet, it appeared, there were 
some lingering remains of my former self that could 
attract casual attention. 

“ llanchett,” the Colonel abruptly asked, “ were 
you in the late war ?” 

“ No, sir ” 

“ Did you ever see me anywhere before you en- 
listed f ’ 

“Not to my knowledge, sir.” 

“ Ever know a man named Gorman ?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“That will do, You may return to your desk,” 


A MODFRJV MIRAGLZ 


^10 

My right hand goes up to the side of my head 
again, palm outward ; I turn with a mechanical 
“ about face,” and march back to the “ consolidated 
morning report.” With eyes on my papers, but 
ears attentive, I hear the explanation of this pro- 
ceeding : 

‘‘ It is one of those singular cases of accidental re- 
semblance, Captain, which we often find in novels, 
and more rarely in real life. In ’62 I was a lieu- 
tenant in the infantry of the Army of the Poto- 
mac. The senior Colonel of the brigade was a 
Kew York man, a dashing fellow named Ellard 
Gorman. He was one of the best volunteer officers 
I ever knew ; would certainly have got two stars 
had he stayed and seen the thing out. And al- 
though the fellow at the desk yonder is much older 
than Gorman would be now, there is a strong re- 
semblance to him in the upper part of the man’s 
face ; especially the eyes. {Sometimes I’ve seen 
Hanchett look up suddenl}^, when there would be 
so much of brave Colonel Gorman’s expression in 
those eyes that he has absolutely startled me. It 
rather gives an inveterate novel-reader like me a 
sense of relief to learn that there are actually such 
chance likenesses outside of the romances. It’s ah 
together stranger than anything like the ‘ Corsican 
Brothers’ business, for there is every reason why 
twin brothers should bear a marked resemblance.” 

What became of the officer you speak of ?” 

“ He left us after Chancellorsville, went home, and 
was making a great success in politics, I heard. About 
four years ago I read the account of his death in 


m 


A MODEBAf MIRACLE, 


ISTew York City. Accident of some kind; a crush 
or a panic in a crowd — I don’t just remember what. 
Heigh-ho ! So it goes. He was a grand fellow !” 

‘‘ Colonel, I shouldn’t wonder if I could explain 
the resemblance of my man to your volunteer offi- 
cer.” 

“ You can? Let’s hear it.” 

Colonel Gorman was fond of the military serv- 
ice, I take it ?” 

‘^Oh, yes. He liked it, and was well adapted 
to it.” 

‘‘Well, my theory is, that what brings people 
back from the other world is some strong, overmas- 
tering occupation or affection that they have known 
in this. You have spoken of the ‘Corsican Broth- 
ers;’ that was the motive there, you remember. 
How, I suppose that your Colonel Gorman, departed 
this life, can’t shake off the associations of his old 
army experience. From some near corner of the 
Elysian Fields he hears the bugles and the drums at 
Fort Dodge, and his spirit is so powerfully invited 
back that he comes down and joins our post. And 
since military regulations and a natural delicacy in 
superseding yourself prevent his taking command, 
he seizes on a good soldier of ‘ B ’ Company, inhabits 
his hard-tack-and-bacon-consuming system, and oc- 
casionally looks out at you through his eyes.” 

“ Stubbs, get along with you ! When you leave 
the army, take my advice, and don’t set up for a 
small wit. You’ll make a dismal failure of it.” 


Under the sullen, rainy sky, there at the edge of 


A MODEUN MIRACLE. 


m 


the lava-beds, vie crouched beneath our blankets, 
denied the fire necessary to make coffee, as that 
might render us the targets for hostile bullets from 
scores of Modoc rifles not far away. We lay there 
munching hard bread and waiting for the •work 
which it was sure the morrow would bring. With- 
drawn from all others, I dozed and woke by turns ; 
and at times, in waking moments, heard the voices 
of those about me in suppressed tones as they talked 
(soldiers always do) of the prospect before us. They 
criticised, grumbled, occasionally swore under their 
breath ; and when the time should come, each man 
of them would do his duty. Death and wounds 
were part of their trade. 

We’re sent up here to be murdered, as others 
have been before us,” said one. ‘‘ The bloody ras- 
cals are safe behind the rocks and in the pits ; they 
can pick off every one that tries to get to them.” 

“Nothing but stupid butchery,” another indig- 
nantly observed. “ Will they put us all in ?” 

“ A company at a time, I hear. Ours goes first. 
I heard some of the officers talking.” 

“Will the Lieutenant command us?” 

“ No ; I heard them say our Captain had come up 
and was going to handle us.” 

“ Our Captain ? Didn’t know we had one. Haven’t 
seen any in this company for two years.” 

“New man, they say; been on detached service; 
never with the company before.” 

“Wonder if he knows the scrape he’s getting 
into ?” 

“ He’ll find out soon enough.” 


^2 ^ MODEnir MIRACLE. 

Other fragments of talk came to my ears and 
passed unheeded. What the morrow might bring 
was a matter of indifference to me — who would com- 
mand, who would fall, who survive, what Fate had 
in store for me. Why should I care ? I deemed 
myself now superior to shock or emotion ; 3^et even 
at this late day and in this savage situation another 
pang was preparing for me. It came with the mor- 
row. 


Our company was in line before daylight, waiting 
orders. With the Lieutenant I saw a strange officer. 
There was a double-barred strap on his shoulder ; 
his face was away from me as he talked with his 
subaltern. 

It was after daylight when our orders came. I 
was near enough to hear them. 

Captain G-ardette, the General directs you to 
deploy your company as skirmishers, advance cau- 
tiously but steadily, and develop the position of the 
enemy. If possible, drive them.” 

Captain Gardette ! He turned, and I saw his face. 
The man with whom I had parted years before on 
the ISTatchez hill was here to face death with me. 

He spoke just a few words ere deploying us from 
the center, right and left. 

This will be stern work, men ! Stick to it ! 
Don’t flinch ! You may take all the cover you can 
find; but you must keep moving! Fire at will! 
Bugler, sound the order !” 

Stretched out in a long line, with intervals of six 


A MOJ)/^R]V MIRACLE. 


223 


yards from man to man, we .ascended the rocks and 
moved on. Stooping, crouching, sometimes on hands 
and knees, we slowly penetrated thjs dismal solitude, 
guided by the occasional notes of the bugle in the 
rear, sounding ^^Halt!” “Forward!’’ “To the left!” 
“ To the right !” 

The direction was constantly an ascending one ; 
constantly was the way more difficult. The pits 
grew deeper ; the rocks that walled them were 
higher. As we went on, bullets sung through the 
air, often striking the rocks. From one point of 
shelter and another I saw above us puffs of smoke 
rising over the stony barriers that Nature had set up 
against us, and all along our line a scattering, irregu- 
lar fire was delivered that way. I fired, and loaded 
and fired again with the others, well knowing that I 
was likely to hit nothing but rocks. All the advan- 
tage was with our hidden foes. They were not in 
the least, exposed ; but men advancing as we were, 
however carefully, often shelved a head or a limb to 
the searching bullets of the Modocs. I saw several 
of our wounded making their way back ; one soldier 
I passed lay motionless on his face, with a hole 
through his head. 

At a great shelf of rock I paused, peering care- 
fully around it to find shelter for a further advance. 
Footfalls and voices behind me caused me to turn 
my head; there were the Captain and the bugler. 
The faces of both were very pale, but from different 
emotions. The bugler was sadly frightened, and 
crouched closely under the cover ; the face of Gar- 
dette was white with the pallor of a desperate reso- 


224 


A MODE RN MIRACLE. 


lution. In his face, in his eyes, I saw it before he 
had made another movement. 

He saw me, but took no notice of me ; I was not 
recognized. Beaching up with both hands to the 
top of the shelf, he drew himself up by main 
strength. 

I thought that he meant only to bring his eyes to 
the level of the top, so that he might take an in- 
stant’s survey of the field beyond. 

Ho ! He raised himself till his knees were on the 
edge, planted a foot, and quickly stood upright on 
that high pedestal, motionless as a statue, his field- 
glass at his eyes. 

My own indifference to death had departed with 
the sound of the first shots ; I saw his rash exposure, 
and cried out to him, in warning : 

‘^For God’s sake, come down!” 

He never answered me, standing there unmoved, 
while bullets angrily hissed past him and glanced 
from the rock. For half a minute he stood thus; 
then he toppled over and fell from the height. I 
caught him in my arms and laid him down on the 
hard floor of the pit. His eyes were closed ; I knew 
from the bloody froth on his lips that he had re- 
ceived his death-wound. 

I heard the irregular rattle of musketry, the hiss 
and thud of bullets, the occasional shout of a soldier, 
and the exulting yells of the concealed foe as they 
saw a shot well placed. I heard these sounds among 
the desolate lava-beds, and I heeded them not. I 
was kneeling by the dying man, wiping the froth 
from his lips, the damps of approaching death from 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


225 


his brow, silently awed by the tragic spectacle, but 
wondering what strange vicissitude had driven him 
hither from the happiness that had been denied me. 

At first I feared he would die and make no sign. 
His pulse fiuttered feebly in his wrist and his hands 
were growing cold. But a little time before he 
passed away his eyes opened, and he instantly 
recognized me. 

here he whispered, • with a sad smile. 
“You saw me do it ? It is strange that you should 
be near me at such a time, but it is well. The last 
time I saw you, you refused my hand. Won’t you 
take it now ?” 

Time, the fell destroyer, had leveled every barrier 
between us, and if a new sorrow had been possible 
to me I might have felt it as I pressed both his 
chilling hands in mine. 

“I don’t wonder, though, that you should be 
here,” he went on. “But you don’t seem to be try- 
ing very hard to get yourself killed. Ah, you are 
enduring it ; you are suffering and living on, just as 
men will who have nothing but the husks of life 
left. But it grew too weary for me to bear ; I felt 
that there must be an end to it. I chose this one ; 
men will call it honorable. It will matter little to 
me what they say of it.” 

“Why did you do it?” 

“ Because s/ie left me. What is the world to me 
without her ?” 

“ What is it to you ? what would it not be to me, 
had I been put in your place ?” I passionately ex- 
claimed. “You mean to tell me that death has 


226 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


taken her. Well, that is hard to bear; it might 
have crazed you ; it might have crazed me, in your 
place. But I tell you, Leon Gardette, that, had my 
brain survived the shock of holding her dead in my 
arms, I could have still gone on in the world, 
desolate, yet comforted by the thought that she had 
loved me, that she died loving me.” 

From his dying lips came the words, like a faint 
echo of my own : 

She did love you ; she died loving you !” 

It was the one torture that could still rend me. I 
writhed under it. 

Tell me all, now,” I said. Keep nothing back 
that I ought to know.” 

You shall hear. You knew my jealousy of you, 
which I could not hide from you ; it had a better 
reason than you suspected. When Julia consented 
to be my wife, she treated me with dreadful frank- 
ness. 

“ ‘It will be a sad day for 3/ou, Leon, that makes 
me such,’ she said. ‘You are noble, accomplished 
and kind. You deserve, you can gain, the love of 
some one worthier of it than I. Mine you never 
can win. It has been given to one who had no right 
to it, and whose pursuit has made my life since then 
unhappy.’ 

“ ‘ Let me take all the risk, dear Julia,’ I answered. 

‘ As your husband, your protector against him and 
all the world, your love must come to me in time.’ 

“ She shook her head. ‘ I wrong you by consent- 
ing,’ she said; ‘but since you urge it, and talk of 
the misery you would bear without me, I yield. I 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 227 

seem to have been created to act the part of another 
Helen of Troy, in my poor way. Yoit see the walls 
that are shutting me in ; it is ihy destiny. I cannot 
fly forever from his pursuit. I weary of it, and 
some day my woman’s weakness will surrender to 
his persistence. Oh, heaven ! why am I driven to 
this alternative? The way of honor and duty to 
myself, to him and his, leads, me' to give you my 
hand, Leon ; but I warn you — for your own sake, I 
warn you ! — do not take it.’ ” 

A spasm convulsed him ; he was able to say but 
a few words more. 

‘‘ It was as she said. Her person was mine ; her 
heart, never ! She wasted awa}^, lingered but a year 
after you last saw her, and died. Can you guess 
what killed her ? I would not add one drop to your 
bitter cup, but I tell you that you wrecked her life, 
as well as your own.” 

I bowed my head over him. The fount of tears 
was not quite dry; one burning drop fell on his hand. 

His gentle smile shone upon me in his last mo- 
ments ; he motioned me to put my head down close, 
and then his arm was thrown about my neck. 

Forgive the custonj of the ardent I’renchman,” 
he whispered, with a touch of his old, exquisite 
politeness. “Ah, 7mn ami — do you remember 
Avhen I said to you, ‘ In better days, under other 
circumstances, we two would have been fast friends ?’ 
For one minute, now, let us be friends ! You press 
my hand ; you are angry no longer. Shall I tell 
you what she said, at the last ? She thanked me for 
what she called my kindness ; and she added ; 


228 


A MODERN MIRACLE, 


“‘If you ever find tell him all. Farewell, 
husband! Do you remember what I have often 
told you ? “ There’s somewhat, in this world amiss, 
shall be unriddled by and by.” ’ ” 

Did she wait for him in the Silence ? Does she 
wait for me ? 


A MODER]^ MIRACLE, 


m 


CHAPTEK XYIIL 

IN AND OUT OF EDEN. 

I RECALL a fanciful story that I read in my boy- 
hood of an unhappy departed spirit, pursued 
by the^ memory of his misdeeds, roaming up and 
down the world to find consolation from some un- 
known source. At last he was able to discover that 
his death had conferred a great blessing on several 
people. It had happened by no virtue of his own ; 
he had left behind him no record of good actions 
which could have such a result ; but the mere fact 
of his death had, in a remarkable way, put a happi- 
ness within the reach of others that they could not 
possess while he lived. Upon learning which, the 
perturbed spirit retired again within the shadow, 
soothed and comforted. 

The application of this fragment of old-world folk- 
lore to my own case occurred to me at St. Louis in 
the early spring of 1873. I was just discharged 
from the army after the completion of my five years’ 
term of enlistment, greatly debilitated from hard 
service, and with two hundred dollars in my pocket, 
arrears of pay. Thinking of the troublous question, 
“ What next?” the tale I have mentioned came into 
my head. Before the next turn of the kaleidoscope 
of my life, I resolved to act on the suggestion. 

As an evil spirit on earth, I surely had cause 


230 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


enough for uneasiness. It was not enough that I 
had stranded myself ; two other fair lives, at least, 
had shared in the wreck I had made. But might 
there not be an offset? May not some blessings 
have flowed from my death ? If so, and I could be 
permitted to behold them, unrecognized, perhaps my 
self-imposed punishment would not be so hard to 
bear. 

I came East on that errand. 

More than ever I felt secure against recognition 
in the changes wrought upon me by time, grief and 
sickness; yet I would take no risks, and so regu- 
lated my journey that I reached Montville in the 
evening. A full moon was up shortly after, with- 
out which I could not have seen some things that 
are briefly to be spoken of. 

The place had much grown in seven years. I 
slowly walked the streets, supported by my cane, 
took note of large blocks that were new to me, and 
improvements everywhere. It was a sultry night, 
such as sometimes comes with the coming of May, 
and the streets were populous. Yes, the place must 
have grown in every way since my day. 

I would not stop and ask a question, slight as the 
hazard would be. But I noticed many things that 
were signiflcant ; none more so than the great block 
with sandstone front on the principal street, with a 
marble tablet high up, on which was graven Hunt 
— 1870 .’’ 

I had come to seek the evidence of other people’s 
happiness — not reminders of myself. Yet. here a 
glimmer of the old feeling of pride in what I had 


A MIRACLE. 


accomplished, in what I had once been, which was 
ever present when I was trying to contrive my exit, 
came back, and for awhile there was an absurd 
hunger of the spirit to learn that I was still remem- 
bered here. I could not inquire, nor seek for print- 
ed volumes nor files of newspapers — but a place sud- 
denly occurred to me where silent and grateful tes- 
timony might be borne of me. I turned my steps 
to the cemetery. 

Graves, headstones and monuments had thick- 
ened ; but of the latter, I could without difficulty 
pick out the conspicuous ones that I had never seen. 
Almost by intuition I paused before an imposing 
shaft of Scotch granite, upon whose polished pedes- 
tal I read that it was “ Sacred to the memory of 
Ellard Gorman, late Colonel of I^ew York Yolun- 
- teers, and first Mayor of Montville, who departed 
this life May 11th, A. D. 1866, aged thirty -three 
years.” Also that the deceased was A brave sol- 
dier and a worthy citizen and that this monument 
had been Affectionately dedicated to his memory 
by the people of Montville.” 

With my strange craving abundantly satisfied, I 
left the cemetery and sought the mansion where I 
had passed some years of secret unhappiness. It 
rose before me very familiar — the great house, with 
its ornate front, surrounded by shrubberies and gar- 
dens. Gleams of light came from windows here 
and there, while the moon brilliantly illumined the 
grounds ; and, like the somber spirit in the story, I 
skulked about in the shadows, eager for a glimpse of 
the heaven within. 


232 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


I was crouching down behind some bushes near 
the large piazza, when a little boy of four or five 
years came out through an open window, and look- 
ing about, clapped his hands in childish glee. 

“ Oh, papa ! — mamma ! — come out ! ’’ he cried. 
“ Come and see the big round moon, and how 
pretty it makes the garden.” , 

I heard voices within ; a man looked out, and for 
an instant resisted the child’s efforts to pull him 
along. 

“ Georgia, let us sit out here awhile with Ellard,” 
I heard him say. “ The night is mild and the moon- 
light entrancing.” 

In a moment, dear,” I heard answered in a musi- 
cal voice that carried me back ten years at a bound. 
“ Let me call Ellen first, to sit with the baby.” 

Soon they were sitting together outside ; I saw 
their faces and forms. The boy leaned fondly upon 
his mother’s shoulder; her hand caressed his fair 
head. 

“ Sing, mamma ; please sing,” he asked. 

She complied with a sweet and touching ballad. 
Her husband looked up when she had done, and 
inquired : 

“Georgia, do you know what happened seven 
years ago to-day ?” 

“Yes,” she answered in a low voice. “I thought 
of it this morning. May eleventh — the day he 
died.” 

“ Who died ?” the boy questioned. 

“ Hush, Ellard.” 

“ I want to know,” the child persisted. 


A MODERN MIRACLE 


233 


It was the man you were named after.’’ 

^ “ Was he a good man ?” 

There was a pause. 

I say, was he good ?” the little tyrant demanded. 

‘‘Tell him, Weldon.” The voice that said it was 
unsteady. 

“Yes, my son; and he suffered a great deal. We 
named you for him, that we always might be re- 
minded of him.” 

“ Then if he was a good man he went to heaven, 
didn’t he ?” 

“ I hope so,” Weldon Hunt’s voice answered. 

“ Oh, husband, it must be so ! God has been so 
good to us. He cannot have permitted him to remain 
miserable. Last night I dreamed of him ; I saw him 
and Julia together.” 

“ Julia !” Weldon repeated with a start. “That 
was strange. We do not even know that she is 
dead.” 

. “Hor do we know that she is alive. You have 
told me that you have heard nothing from her since 
she coldly returned your letter soon after Ellard 
died.” 

“ That was the last. I know not where she is ; I 
lately wrote to Wycaseo, making inquiry, but could 
learn nothing.” 

“ She must be dead, because in my dream I saw 
them standing together, hand in hand. All about 
them it was dark, except that a soft light enveloped 
their faces and figures ; her face was raised to him, 
and she was smiling. When I awoke the vision 
seemed still so real that I fervently prayed for their 


m 


A MOnmN MIRACLW, 


happiness — for the peace which the world never 
gave them.’’ 

“ Amen !” 

A tear glistened on the woman’s cheek ; the man’s 
head was bowed. When they went in, his arm was 
about her and her head lay on his shoulder, like two 
lovers in the spring-time of the heart. 

Out of those grounds and up the street a shadow 
flitted. Why call it a man ? It had no name, no 
home, no kin ; it had been briefly haunting this 
place, and would now disappear forever. 

Again in New York. I have engaged my passage 
in the steerage of the steamship Blucher, for Bre- 
men. An irresistible impulse compelled me to do 
it in the name of Lawrence Galton. 

Well, why not? Was that not well? He had 
taken my name, my personality, in death ; he had 
left me nothing but his name ; why should I not 
have that during the poor remnant of my existence ? 

The fancy gave me a certain grim pleasure. 
Something lil^epost mortem justice appeared in it. 

Once he had bitterly complained to me on one of 
these streets: “You. might be in my place now, if 
things were different. You may be there yet.” The 
day had come! Worthy of nothing better than to 
bear his dishonored name, I took it. 

There is a note-book in my pocket, in which I 
have from time to time jotted down memoranda of 
persons and events. The name “Edward Han- 
chett ” now disappears from the first page ; that of 
Lawrence Galton takes its place. 


A MODERN MIRACLE. 


235 


To-morrow I begin my journey to Nowhere. 
Oblivion, absolute concealment in some corner of 
the Old World, are what I seek. 

The old thoughts of African exploration, of mili- 
tary service in Turkey or Egypt, have not troubled 
me of late. I have not the bodily strength left for 
such projects. 

Besides, such adventures would open to me what 
I dare not seek now — a new career. Notoriety, 
above all, must be avoided. I conjured to my own 
destruction in A Modern Miracle. Others have 
fallen under the blight ; in studied obscurity let me 
save those who remain. And may God be merciful 
to me, a sinner ! 


THE END. 



THE BOYS’ HOME LIBRARY. 

A series of spirited stories for hoys, by popular writers. Each 
illustrated, unifor m in size, hound in handsome paper cover. 

It is almost superfluous to say anything in 
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realizing this should buy these books for them. 
The Following are the Titles: 

THE TREASURE-FINDERS. A Boy’s Adventures in Nicaragua. By 
James Otis. Price 25 cents. 

ROY GILBERT’S SEARCH. A Tale of the Great Lakes. By Wm. 
Pendleton Chipman. Price 25 cents. 

“This is a very readable and well written story.’’ — Express, Albany, N. V. 
TOM, THE BOOT-BLACK; or, The Road to Success. By Horatio 
Alger, Jr. Price 25 cents. 

“ It has been our pleasure to read all the books published in this series, and 
so far not one has been found, nor even one sentence discovered, that is object- 
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THE KING OF APELAND. The Wonderful Adventures of a Young 
Animal-Trainer. By Harry Prentice. Price 25 cents. 

“ The author tells the story in a style that will excite the interest of boys to 
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A JAUNT THROUGH JAVA. The Story of a Journey to the Sacred 
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A RUNAWAY BRIG; or. An Accidental Cruise. By James Otis. 

Price 25 cents. 

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THE ISLAND TREASURE ; or, Harry Darrel’s Fortunes. By Frank 
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A YOUNG HERO ; or. Fighting to Win. By Edward S. Ellis. 

/ Price 25 cents. 

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For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent post-paid 07 i receipt of 

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THE BOYS’ HOME LIBRARY. 

LOST IN THE CANON. The Story of Sam Willett’s Adventures on 
the Great Colorado of the West. By Alfred R. Calhoun. 

Price 25 cents. 

“ A remarkable story ©f adventure in the Far West in which every reader will 
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TOM THATCHER’S FORTUNE. By Horatio Alger, Jr. Price 25 cts. 

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THE CASTAWAYS ; or, On the Florida Reefs. By James Otis. 

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TOM TEMPLE’S CAREER. By Horatio Alger, Jr. Price 25 cents. 

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BEN BURTON, THE SLATE-PICKER. By Harry Prentice. 

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GUY HARRIS, THE RUNAWAY. By Harry Castlemon. Price 25 cents. 

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FRANK FOWLER, THE CASH BOY. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 

Price 25 cents. 

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ADRIFT IN THE WILDS ; or. The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked 
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“ This is one ofthe best of Mr. Alger’s stories. It is full of pluck, grit and ad- 
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TJSEFTJIL, jViVr> ' BOOKS 


Cyclopedia of Natural History : Comprising descriptions of 
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Structure, Habits and Distribution. For popular use. By Chas. C. Abbott, 
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The National Standard History of the United States*. 

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XJBEI?TJIL. A]N1> I»IlAOTXOAI^ BOOK!© 


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Joe’s Luck; or, A Boy’s Adventures in California. By 

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Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. Il- 

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Guy Harris, the Runaway. By Harry Castlemon. Illus- 

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Patience Pettigrew’s Perplexities. A veracious history of 

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